FORCE PROTECTION ISSUE: U.S. Leaders Promise Security for Gaza Dock Mission Amid Threat Concerns
Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. CQ Brown said U.S. officials are monitoring the situation closely, to understand the possible ramifications for additional violence in the region in coming weeks. Earlier this month, Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters that military leaders expect the pier will be operational in less than two months and help provide more than 2 million meals to refugees on a daily basis.
US leaders promise security for Gaza dock mission amid threat concerns
“Force protection is at the top of our list any time we put our forces in harm’s way,”Brown told reporters during a press event on Thursday.
“There will be our own capabilities to protect our forces, the Israelis have also committed to help protect our forces in the area, and have other nations that are also part of this as well.
“So, as that capability is starting to move … that has given us time to work with allies and partners to start looking at not only the force protection piece but all the other parts that have to come together.”
That reality drew concern from Republican members of the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this week.
In a letter led by committee ranking member Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the lawmakers voiced “strong reservations” about the mission because it “entails a significant risk to U.S. personnel.”
“This decision appears to ignore force protection issues entirely against an enemy that tries to kill Americans every day,”the group wrote.
“We are gravely concerned that the Department of Defense has given too little consideration to the likelihood that Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other U.S.-designated terrorist organizations operating in Gaza would attempt to attack the U.S. personnel that will be deployed to this mission.”
White House officials in recent weeks have said that American forces will not be on land for the work, and have emphasized that protecting U.S. troops and ships will be their primary focus while conducting the effort.
Brown echoed that sentiment on Thursday, noting that top U.S. Central Command officials have been in the region for the last week surveying the situation and making sure both troops and refugees will be able to safely access the floating dock once it is built.
The Joint Chiefs chairman also said he met with Israeli defense officials this week to hear about their plans to attack Hamas battalions that have fled to the southern city of Rafah, an area with more than one million Palestinian civilians.
RELATED
Cyprus says temporary port for Gaza aid could be ready in April
DPA
A temporary harbour announced by the United States for the coast of the devastated Gaza Strip to provide additional aid to civilians could be operational in April, Cypriot Preisdent Nikos Christodoulides said on Thursday, citing a US delegation. . .
The port will mainly consist of a temporary pier that is to allow for hundreds of additional truckloads of aid each day, as Gaza itself does not have a port that is deep enough for larger freighter vessels. Initially, the pier, which is being built by the US army, was to be finished by May 1. Its earlier deployment would contribute to "increase humanitarian aid to Gaza," Christodoulides told Cypriot radio station RIK. The Cypriot port city of Larnaca is located only some 400 kilometres from Gaza by sea, but despite Nicosia's efforts, only 200 tons of aid has been delivered to Gaza from the port since the war broke out following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on Israel. In mid-March, a ship operated by Spanish aid organization World Central Kitchen reached the coast of Gaza with a platform loaded with food and sanitary products in tow.
Since that first delivery via sea, another vessel loaded with some 500 tons of aid has been stuck in the port of Larnaca. According to Cypriot government sources, its departure is currently being delayed by strong winds and swells off Gaza.
A new US-run pier off Gaza could help deliver 2 million meals a day – but it comes with security risks
The U.S. has dispatched eight Army and Navy vessels from Virginia to build a temporary pier off the coast of the Gaza Strip. The aim of this work: to supply food and other necessary items for Palestinians as the war between Israel and Hamas continues and the resulting humanitarian crisis worsens. . .
The U.N. is pressing for Israel to approve food truck convoys run by the main U.N. aid agency supporting people in Gaza, known by the acronym UNRWA, which Israel announced on March 25, 2024, that it would no longer work with.
As a former White House national security aide and former U.S. diplomat, I understand the internal workings of the civilian-military sides of constructing a pier and other projects like this during war. I also am aware of the security dimensions that accompany this kind of endeavor. The temporary pier could offer a partial solution to averting famine in Gaza. But the operation also involves complex logistics, high costs and security risks.
About 1,000 U.S. soldiers will construct this temporary port, which will serve as a relay site for food that comes by ship from Cyprus, before the goods are ferried by water into Gaza.
No U.S. soldiers are expected to set foot in Gaza.
What will the finished project look like? Imagine standing on a beach and there is a long plank that one can walk out from the shoreline of the beach over the water. This leads to a large, floating pier that is surrounded by boats.
Large ships must be able to unload supplies onto the pier, including tons of food, water and medicine.
Smaller boats will need to get the aid closer to the shore because Gaza has lost the functions of its port, and its waters are too shallow for large vessels. The new pier is the point between those two activities.
Not the first time the US has used this kind of operation
The Pentagon has erected temporary piers for decades, both for military support during wartime and emergency humanitarian assistance in times of conflict.
During Operation Desert Storm in 1991 – a military operation to oust Iraqi forces from Kuwait – the U.S. created a floating pier for military purposes because the Iraqis had mined Kuwait’s port and the U.S. often resupplied troops on the ground via the sea.
Most often, floating piers are built to create a port after or during a crisis.
The U.S. built a floating pier in the Port-au-Prince Bay following the 2010 Haiti earthquake. This allowed them to get food and medicine to help humanitarian agencies that could not travel on badly damaged roads get food and medicine to civilians in need.
The U.S. military continues to build floating piers in training missions, like one it temporarily constructed off South Korea in 2015 to test cargo deliveries in the event of a crisis.
Security is of paramount concern with this type of construction during an active war. The Biden administration has made clear from the start of the war that there would be no U.S. boots on the ground in Gaza, but this mission brings troops dangerously close to the action.
Israeli officials have given the green light to Biden to pursue this operation, and there will be security checks of ships in Cyprus before they head to the port, which should quicken the unloading.
But the pier could become a target for Hamas or other Iranian-backed proxy groups in Gaza or elsewhere that still have mortar, rockets, drones and other ways to harass or attack the ship. It also could lead to stampedes for the aid. Twelve people drowned off Gaza’s northern coast trying to retrieve food from the Mediterranean Sea on March 26, 2024.
An unknown cost Major military operations are expensive, and there is no exact, publicly available price tag for the Gaza pier project.
To me, there is a certain irony in the fact that Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, including major weapons systems, and the U.S. is now spending money on building a pier in order to deliver aid to the very people that are harmed by this U.S. ally using those weapons.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Tara Sonenshine, Tufts University
Tara Sonenshine does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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What will the finished project look like?
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