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The US will set up a port on the Gaza coast for large ships carrying humanitarian supplies, senior administration officials said on Thursday, following weeks of frustration over Israel’s failure to allow more aid into the enclave.
President Joe Biden will announce the decision during his State of the Union address on Thursday evening, as well as the opening of a new land crossing into war-torn northern Gaza in the coming week to deliver assistance by truck.
“The president will announce that he’s directing the US military to lead an emergency mission to establish a port in the Mediterranean on the Gaza coast that can receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters,” a senior US official said.
The dramatic step comes as the Biden administration has been increasingly critical of Israel’s failure to open the way for more humanitarian aid to be delivered via land, which is far more efficient than by sea. The US began airdropping food aid along the Gaza coast over the weekend.
Despite this frustration Biden has been unwilling to use military assistance to Israel as leverage, creating an unusual situation where the US is delivering aid via air and sea to a population under occupation by a close US ally that is also receiving American weapons.
Biden has faced a backlash from some members of his Democratic party over his support for Israel’s war in Gaza. More than 30,000 people have died in Gaza since Israel launched its offensive, according to Palestinian officials. The campaign was in retaliation for Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials.
US officials did not provide many of the critical details of the maritime effort, such as who will inspect aid and how it will be delivered once it arrives in Gaza. No US troops are expected to be on the ground in the besieged enclave.
One senior European official said the aid would be delivered from Cyprus to a platform off Gaza, which the US would establish. The plan was drawn up by the US in co-ordination with the EU, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates and the UN, which would ultimately take over the administration of the aid supplies into Gaza.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said on Thursday that his government had “worked tirelessly” to design a humanitarian maritime corridor to “deliver a high volume of aid to the people of Gaza”.
An Israeli official said the matter would be discussed at a security cabinet meeting late on Thursday.
The initiative comes after the US has largely failed to convince Israel to reverse course on its restrictions of food, water, medicine and other assistance for Gaza’s 2.3mn people, who are facing conditions that vice-president Kamala Harris described earlier this week as “inhumane”.
Israel had until Thursday resisted opening more border crossings, and has failed to disperse protesters blocking aid deliveries at the Kerem Shalom crossing and secure aid corridors to distribute assistance across the increasingly lawless Gaza Strip.
Michael Wahid Hanna, US programme director at the Crisis Group think-tank, said the initiative would not address the urgent needs of Gazans who face the increasing risk of starvation.
“This cannot be the only option, otherwise famine will overtake many more people,” Hanna said. “There’s a much easier solution, which is Israel allowing humanitarian assistance to go in through existing land borders.”
Hanna also raised questions about who would deliver the assistance, particularly as the Biden administration had suspended funding to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, after Israel alleged that 12 of its members took part in Hamas’s October 7 attack.
A second US official said the port would include a temporary pier and was intended to provide “the capacity for hundreds of additional truckloads of assistance each day”. The US aims to transition it to a commercially operated port over time.
The US military will supply the shipments through Cyprus, in co-ordination with other partners and allies, the official said.
Many of the details need to be worked out and the port construction “will take a number of weeks to plan and execute”, the second official said.
“We look forward to working with our close partners and allies in Europe, the Middle East and beyond to build a coalition of countries that will contribute capabilities and funding for this initiative,” the official added.
The European Commission, which is the largest provider of aid to the Palestinian territories, said on Thursday that it would ensure “all the necessary aid” would be available to move through the maritime corridor. Ursula von der Leyen, commission president, is flying to Cyprus on Thursday.
Additional reporting by Paola Tamma and Andrew England in London, Eleni Varvitsioti in Athens and Andy Bounds in Bucharest
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