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Port of No Return: The US Plan for Aid Relief in Gaza
Aerial view shows a World Central Kitchen (WCK) barge loaded with food arriving off Gaza, where there is risk of famine after five months of Israel’s military campaign, in this handout image released March 15, 2024. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS
The US has chosen to cross the Rubicon. In his 2024 State of the Union address, President Biden reminded Americans, “The United States has been leading international efforts to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza.” He said, “I’m directing the US military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the Gaza coast that can receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine, and temporary shelters.”
Washington has taken ownership of the crisis by committing significant US resources to mitigate the Gaza humanitarian emergency. It is now America’s problem to solve. The Marshall Plan saved Western Europe from starvation and Soviet domination, but it came at a serious price: the US became intimately and inextricably involved in European affairs, effectively becoming “the most important country in Europe.” The US Gaza port plan is the first step in a “Marshall Plan for Gaza.” It is the Port of No Return.
However, when we look at American aid missions that were attempted in other areas embroiled in war and conflict in the years since the original Marshall Plan, the US has had less success.
In the early 1980s, President Reagan deployed US Marines to Lebanon as part of a multinational peacekeeping force to stabilize the country amid its civil war and facilitate the withdrawal of Israeli forces. While their goal was to provide a neutral intervention to restore peace and order, the US forces increasingly found themselves embroiled in the conflict, as they were perceived as siding with the Lebanese government and its Christian allies against Muslim factions. The situation deteriorated dramatically on October 23, 1983, when a Hezbollah truck bomb destroyed the US Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 American service personnel. The devastating attack, one of the deadliest against US forces since World War II, led President Reagan to withdraw the remaining US forces, marking an end to the ill-fated intervention.
Similarly, in the early 1990s, the US initiated a humanitarian aid operation in Mogadishu, Somalia, to alleviate the severe famine and restore order amidst the country’s civil war. What was meant to be a UN-backed aid distribution operation escalated into a military engagement when local warlords appropriated all the aid and monopolized its distribution. The US resolved to end the control of the warlords through military force, culminating in the infamous 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, vividly depicted in the book and film Black Hawk Down. Intense urban warfare resulted in significant casualties, with 18 US soldiers killed and 73 wounded. On the Somali side, hundreds, perhaps as many as 1,000 Somalis were killed. The dramatic failure of the operation prompted another embarrassing US withdrawal.
There is significant risk in endeavors of this kind. Hamas uses its monopoly on the distribution of resources, including foreign aid, to reward its members and supporters. It withholds these resources as a means of control. Power is a finite resource, and an increase in power for one party directly corresponds to a decrease in power for others. Should an alternative source of aid distribution emerge, this lever of Hamas’s power will greatly diminish. There is therefore a strong likelihood that Hamas or a related group will employ violence against aid distribution personnel (civilian or military) to provoke an American withdrawal.
It is also important to bear in mind that some in Gaza have adopted a strong Islamist worldview. These individuals will see the US effort not as a form of international aid relief but as the US attempting to gain a foothold in Dar al-Islam (the territory of Islam). During the Gulf War (1991-92), al-Qaeda made an argument about the sanctity of Dar al-Islam by criticizing the presence of US military forces in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden argued that it was a violation of Islamic principles for non-Muslim forces to be stationed in the land of the believers. He called for the expulsion of US forces and for Muslims to unite against what he perceived as a Western intrusion into Islamic territory. Some Palestinians are already calling the US port just another form of occupation. For Gazans who embrace Islamist ideology, expelling a US presence would be part of their jihad, and the use of force against Americans would be sanctioned.
In the current conflict, Iranian proxies are already targeting Americans. The Houthis of Yemen are attacking US warships and neutral shipping nearly daily. US forces in Iraq and Syria have faced over 130 attacks since October. In all probability, Iran’s surrogates in Gaza will also attack US forces when they arrive in the hope of driving them out. As one analyst put it, “The port will be a bullet magnet.” If casualties mount and the US abandons the project, it will strengthen Iran and deepen Tehran’s impression that the US is wavering in its regional support.
Contrary to media representation, Israel has been providing aid. A recent Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) report noted that “Since Hamas’s October 7 massacre, Israel has supported the transfer of 11,943 humanitarian aid trucks into Gaza. As of February 4, these deliveries included 144,030 tons of food, 20,780 tons of water, 23,160 tons of shelter equipment, 16,700 tons of medical supplies, 146 tanks of fuel, and 222 tanks of cooking gas.” This aid is being delivered while major combat operations are still ongoing, putting IDF soldiers, aid workers, and Gazan residents at risk. In a recent aid delivery attempt, Gazans rushed toward an aid truck, causing a stampede with significant loss of life.
Even with the significant risk involved, the effort may be worthwhile. The US has a storied history of successful humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) programs. The most celebrated would be the aforementioned Marshall Plan (1948-52). The Berlin Airlift (1948-49) was also a major US success. The US has achieved positive results in more recent HADR programs as well, including its responses to a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean (2004), an earthquake in Haiti (2010), the massive Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines (2013), Cyclone Idai in Mozambique (2019), and a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Turkey and Syria (2023).
In Gaza, the relief plan calls for a combination of forward basing out of Cyprus and non-combatant “seabasing” nearer to Gaza with a temporary pier and infrastructure. Gaza has a port, but it is a small fishing boat marina that is not suitable for this sort of operation.
The US military is planning a Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) operation. JLOTS is designed to facilitate the transport and distribution of personnel, equipment, and supplies from sea to shore in environments where traditional port facilities are limited or nonexistent. It involves a coordinated effort among multiple branches of the armed forces, utilizing various specialized equipment and techniques such as roll-on/roll-off ships, causeways, barges, and amphibious vehicles to offload cargo directly onto the shore. It is used when conventional ports are unavailable due to damage, conflict, or lack of infrastructure in remote or austere environments.
Pentagon spokesman Gen Ryder said, “[JLOTS] is a capability… that we are going to execute and enable us to get… up to 2,000,000 meals in [to Gaza] a day.” Also, the EU has donated barges laden with foodstuffs that will be consolidated in Cyprus. According to a recent article in the Jerusalem Post, the operation would involve the screening of cargo in Cyprus, with Israeli officials’ involvement.
Examples of JLOTS capabilities. Source: DoD screenshot republished in “DOD to Construct Pier to Deliver Humanitarian Aid to Gaza” by Mathew Olay, DoD News.
US Military Sealift Command (MSC) conducted a demonstration of its JLOTS capabilities in 2017 through an exercise involving an Expeditionary Transfer Dock (ESD) ship. The USNS MONTFORD POINT (T-ESD-1) is a large vessel with a wide-open deck area and low freeboard, facilitating cargo transfer from conventional ships. The exercise demonstrated the feasibility of the “floating pier” concept. It showcased the ability to transfer large cargo at sea by using the MONTFORD POINT as a floating pier that would receive freight from traditional logistics vessels for further transfer by lighters or similar small vessels.
One day after President Biden’s speech, US Central Command announced that it is deploying five ships and 1,000 troops to build the offshore port and has already dispatched the US Army Vessel (USAV) GENERAL FRANK S. BESSON (LSV-1). The BESSON departed from Virginia and will arrive no earlier than the end of March. The BESSON is tasked with delivering the equipment necessary to establish the temporary pier. The USNS BENAVIDEZ (T-AKR-306), a BOB HOPE class ship, has been activated from the ready reserve to participate. The BENAVIDEZ is a large vessel that carries modules to build both floating and shore-based piers. The 7th Transportation Brigade from Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, will oversee the JLOTS operation. Their mission is to “conduct multi-modal transportation operations in support of the Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration (RSOI) of joint and/or combined forces into a theater of operations.”
President Biden assured Americans in his speech that there would be no US military personnel with “boots on the ground.” It is unclear how the pier can be built securely and aid safely provided without a military presence. In addition, the pier facilities themselves need regular tending and maintenance. “No boots on the ground” likely means highly paid US and foreign contractors to do the job so US military and government personnel can avoid having to do so.
At a recent Pentagon press briefing, General Ryder was asked, “Does the DoD anticipate that Hamas will fire on them, on the JLOTS operation?” He replied, “That’s certainly a risk, but if Hamas truly does care about the Palestinian people, one would hope that this international mission to deliver aid to people who need it would be able to happen unhindered.” If the US is depending on Hamas’s goodwill for the success of this operation, it is likely to be disappointed.
By spearheading the Gaza Port operation, the US has not only underscored its commitment to addressing the dire humanitarian needs in Gaza but is also taking on significant inherent risks. The initiative mirrors historic US humanitarian missions, highlighting America’s capacity to mobilize substantial resources in response to global crises. While the plan aims to deliver essential aid and foster stability, it also exposes the US to risks associated with local power dynamics and anti-American sentiment, echoing past challenges in Lebanon and Somalia. Those were places where the US found itself entangled in local conflicts, with varying degrees of success and failure, all with a fair share of unintended consequences. For Washington this is a serious gamble with high stakes of either peace and stability or calamity and conflict.
David Levy is a retired US Navy Commander. He was the Director for Theater Security Cooperation for US Naval Forces Central Command and the US Air and Naval Attaché in Tunis, Tunisia. CDR. Levy is a Ph.D. candidate at Bar Ilan University in the Department of Political Science.
A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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Rome Synagogue Defaced With Nazi Graffiti as New Report Reveals Antisemitic Prejudice Rampant Across Italy

Security footage of the alleged assault of a Jewish boy in Rome on Jan. 29, 2025. Photo: Screenshot/Castelli Notizie
A masked vandal struck a synagogue in Rome on Saturday shortly before midnight, security camera footage shows, using black marker to leave behind a swastika and antisemitic statements — “Sieg Heil” and ”Juden Raus”— on a sign outside the building’s entrance.
Rabbi Menachem Lazar discovered the crime at Beis Shmuel the next day and filed a report with law enforcement which resulted in the opening of an investigation by Italian law enforcement. Clean-up work and restoration began shortly after uncovering the antisemitic vandalism.
The incident came before a report released on Wednesday by Eurispes — an Italian research institute that focuses on politics, economics, and social issues — revealed the extent of antisemitism in Italy today. The research came as part of an agreement signed in April with Pasquale Angelosanto, the national coordinator for the fight against antisemitism.
The researchers polled a representative sample of the country’s population and found that 37.9 percent of Italians think that Jews “only think about accumulating money” while 58.2 percent see Jews as “a closed community.” In January, the Anti-Defamation League released the newest results of its Global 100 survey which found that 26 percent of Italians — 13.1 million adults — embrace six or more antisemitic stereotypes.
A sizable minority also misperceived the number of Jews in the country: 23.3 percent believed 500,000 Jews lived in Italy while 16.5 percent thought Jews numbered 2 million, both groups amounting to nearly 40 percent of the population misinformed. The Institute for Jewish Policy Research estimates the number of Jews in Italy as ranging from 26,800 to 48,910 depending on which standards of observance one selects. Eurispes places the number at 30,000 with 41.8 percent of respondents answering correctly.
Likewise, a minority of respondents believed historically false ideas about the Holocaust. While 60.4 gave the correct number of 6 million Jewish Holocaust victims, 25.5 believed the number only reached two million and others said even smaller figures, amounting to approximately 40 percent of the population with an inaccurate understanding of the scope of the Nazi-perpetrated genocide.
The report also showed elevated levels of anti-Israel belief among younger Italians, with 50.85 percent of those 18-24 thinking that “Jews in Palestine took others’ territories.” This figure contrasted with 44.2 percent of the general population and tracked alongside ideological self-descriptors as 50 percent of center-left voters agreed while 35 percent of center-right and right-wing voters did.
A majority of respondents — 54 percent — regarded antisemitic crimes as isolated incidents and not part of any broader trend, contrary to the findings of the Antisemitism Observatory of the CDEC Foundation in Milan which saw a surge of 877 reported antisemitic incidents in 2024. Between the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on southern Israel and the end of that year, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi says the government counted 135 antisemitic incidents.
The wave of antisemitic incidents, often fueled by anti-Israel animus, has continued into this year.
In Italy’s Tuscany, for example, the regional council just voted to cut ties with Israel, a decision that came alongside the country’s president condemning conditions in Gaza as “inhumane and dangerous” while warning that Palestinian suffering would increase global antisemitism.
Last month, a restaurant in Naples ejected an Israeli family, telling them “Zionists are not welcome here.”
In November, a hotel manager in Rome canceled an Israeli couple’s booking a day before the start of their trip. He wrote to them, “Good morning. We inform you that the Israeli people as those responsible for genocide are not welcome customers in our structure.” The manager offered that the hotel “would be happy to grant free cancellation.”
On Jan. 29, a homeless Egyptian man in Rome attacked a Jewish boy and wounded the shopkeeper who intervened. At a protest on Jan. 11 in Bologna, demonstrators vandalized a synagogue, painting “Justice for a free Gaza.” Jonathan Peled, who serves as Israeli ambassador to Italy, described the incident as a “serious antisemitic attack which must be condemned with absolute firmness.”
In April, Tel Aviv University’s Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry and the Irwin Cotler Institute for Democracy, Human Rights, and Justice published an analysis naming Australia and Italy as two of the countries with the largest post-Oct. 7 bursts of antisemitism.
The report’s co-author Dr. Carl Yonker said that “in Italy, you see large drive in terms of anti-Israel activism, anti-Zionism activism that manifested itself as antisemitism in Italy.”
The post Rome Synagogue Defaced With Nazi Graffiti as New Report Reveals Antisemitic Prejudice Rampant Across Italy first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘US/Zionist Attack’: Pro-Hamas Campus Groups Condemn Israeli Strikes on Iran

Rescuers work at the scene of a damaged building in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 13, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters Connect.
Pro-Hamas campus groups denounced Israel’s military strikes on Iran on Friday while declaring solidarity with the Islamic Republic in a series of social media posts which called on far-left extremists to flood the streets with riotous demonstrations, reprising a role they played following Hamas’s Iran-backed massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Israel Defense Forces carried out preemptive strikes on Iran’s military installations and nuclear facilities to neutralize top military leaders and quell the country’s efforts to enrich weapons-grade uranium, the key ingredient of their nuclear program. The move appears to have been a success, as Iranian state-controlled media confirmed that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Hossein Salami — as well as several other senior military leaders — and nuclear scientists Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, are dead.
While many observers have cheered the strikes as a necessary act of deterrence which bolsters the credibility of the Western powers’ insisting that no measure will be spared to prevent Iran’s procuring nuclear weapons, pro-Hamas groups on US campuses accused both Israel and the US of inciting an unjust war.
“We reject the US/Zionist attack on Iran, and affirm Iran’s right to self-defense, sovereignty, and self-determination,” Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), one of higher education’s most notorious campus pro-Hamas student organizations, said on X following the strikes. “No to the imperialist was of encroachment — from Syria to Lebanon to Iran — and YES [sic] to the people’s struggle for Palestinian liberation.”
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) implored its followers to express their disapproval of the strikes by amassing at the John F. Kennedy Building in the Government Center section of Boston.
“No war with Iran, emergency rally,” the group said.
Meanwhile, at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), SJP shared on Instagram a post by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), which, in addition to holding documented ties to the US-designated terrorist organization the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), is a key organizer of anti-Israel campus activities.
“Reject the US-Israel war of aggression on Iran,” PYM wrote. “The Zionist occupation launches a series of air strikes across the Tehran [sic], an act of war that seeks to dramatically escalate Zionist and US aggression across the region.”
Off-campus groups embedded in the global network of pro-Hamas groups weighed in as well. In the United Kingdom, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) demanded that Parliament proscribe weapons transfers to Israel.
“As Israel carpet bombs and starves Gaza, intensifies its land grabs and attacks in the West Bank, and now launches major attacks in Iran, the responsibilities on the British government could not be clearer,” PSC said. “It must impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel.”
The statements are reminiscent of the hours following the Oct. 7 attack, in which pro-Hamas groups cheered the Palestinian terrorists and rooted for Israel to fail and be overrun by its enemies.
As scenes of Hamas terrorists abducting children and desecrating dead bodies circulated worldwide and invoked global outrage, dozens of SJP chapters at institutions such as Brown University, the University of Maryland, Tufts University, and UCLA described the attacks as a form of “resistance,” demanding acceptance what they said is “our right to liberate our homeland by any means necessary.”
Additionally, 31 student groups at Harvard University issued a statement blaming Israel for the attack and accusing the Jewish state of operating an “open-air prison” in Gaza, despite that the Israeli military withdrew from the territory in 2005.
“We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” said the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee. “In the coming days, Palestinians will be forced to bear the full brunt of Israel’s violence.”
These activities are facilitated by an array of methods the campus groups use for spreading their extremist worldview, according to a new report published by the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism at Indiana University, Bloomington.
The report — titled “Anti-Israel Campus Groups: Online Networks and Narratives” — explored the ways in which pro-Hamas student groups draw in the world beyond the campus to create an illusion of inexorable support for anti-Zionism. Key to this effort, the report explained, is a vast and ambitious network of non-campus anti-Israel organizations which ply them with logistical and financial resources that significantly boost their capabilities beyond those of normal student clubs.
“Social media platforms, particularly Instagram, play a critical role in mobilizing these groups, spreading radical narratives, and coordinating actions at both local and national levels,” report authors Gunther Jikeli and Daniel Miehling wrote. “Social media shapes perceptions of the Israel-Hamas conflict in significant ways, often through highly emotive and polarizing content that fuels activism and, at times, incitement.”
Social media, which has modernized the manufacturing and distribution of political propaganda by reducing complex subjects to “memes” — some involving humor or contemporary cultural references which appeal to the sensibilities of the youth — are the cheapest and most effective weapons in the arsenal of the pro-Hamas movement, the report went on, noting that this was true before the Palestinian terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel precipitated an explosion of anti-Israel activity online.
From 2013 to 2024, Students for Justice in Palestine, pro-Hamas faculty groups, and others posted over 76,000 posts on social media which were analyzed by the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. Over half, 54.9 percent, included only a single, evocative image.
“In contrast, Reels (5.3 percent) and Videos (4.9 percent) are used far less frequently,” the report continued. “Based on these descriptions, we see a strong preference among campus-based anti-Israel groups for static visual formats, suggesting that this type of bimodal content represents the highest form of shareability within activists networks.”
To boost their audience and reach, pro-Hamas groups also post together in what Jikeli and Miehling described as “co-authored posts,” of which there were over 20,000 between 2013 and 2024. The content they contain elicits strong emotions in the individual users exposed to it, inciting incidents of antisemitic discrimination, harassment, and violence, the report continued. Such outrages increase in proportion to the concentration of anti-Israel groups on a single campus, as the report’s data showed a relationship that is “particularly strong.”
Of all the groups responsible for fostering a hostile campus environment, SJP stands out for being “the most frequent collaborator with other anti-Israel organizations,” the report went on. The group’s closest ally appears to be the Palestinian Youth movement.
“This close collaboration not only broadens SJP;s audience but also suggests that PYM’s radical anti-Zionist rhetoric and visual language may shape elements of SJP’s discourse,” Jikeli and Miehling explained. “PYM’s posts frequently incorporate imagery associated with socialist iconography, national liberation movements, and Islamist martyrdom. Such content often features slogans that reject the legitimacy of the Israeli state, depict convicted Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israel as political prisoners, and glorify members of terrorist groups.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Hezbollah Holds Fire After Israeli Strike on Iran, Signaling Weakened Posture Amid Pressure From Lebanese Gov’t

Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem delivers a speech from an unknown location, Nov. 20, 2024, in this still image from video. Photo: REUTERS TV/Al Manar TV via REUTERS.
The Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah announced it will not carry out a retaliatory strike against the Jewish state in support of Tehran, following a warning from the Lebanese government not to drag the country into a wider confrontation.
“Hezbollah will not initiate its own attack on Israel in retaliation for Israel’s strikes,” the Lebanon-based Islamist group told Reuters.
Israel launched a broad preemptive attack on Iran overnight on Friday, targeting military installations and nuclear sites across the country in what officials described as an effort to neutralize an imminent nuclear threat as nuclear negotiations between the United States and Tehran appear on the brink of collapse.
In an unexpected turn, the choice of Hezbollah, which for decades has been Iran’s chief proxy force in the Middle East, to hold back from retaliating against Israeli strikes on the Islamic regime reveals just how weakened the group is following last year’s Israeli operations in Lebanon — despite its threat of retaliation once serving as a key deterrent against attacks on Iranian nuclear sites.
Last fall, Israel decimated much of Hezbollah’s leadership and military capabilities with an air and ground offensive, which ended with a ceasefire that concluded a year of fighting between the Jewish state and the terrorist group.
In a statement released on Friday, Hezbollah condemned the Israeli attack on Iran, describing it as a dangerous escalation by “an enemy that understands only the language of killing, fire, and destruction.”
The Lebanese group also accused Washington of directly facilitating the attack and called on regional governments to show solidarity with the Iranian people.
“This aggression would not have taken place without direct US approval, coordination, and cover,” a Hezbollah official said in a statement, claiming the strikes are part of a broader effort to advance US and Israeli “hegemony.”
“Washington is now attempting to distance itself to avoid consequences,” the statement read. “If this aggression is not met with rejection, condemnation, and support for Iran and its people, this criminal entity will grow more aggressive and tyrannical.”
Iranian state television confirmed that the attack killed Hossein Salami, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri, along with several other high-ranking military officials.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also said that the entire top command of Iran’s air force was killed, as well as the IRGC commander responsible for overseeing last year’s drone and missile attacks against Israeli territory.
In a separate statement, Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem warned that Israel’s massive attack on Iran “will have major repercussions on the region’s stability, seeing as it will not pass without a response and punishment.”
“We in Hezbollah and our Islamic resistance and mujahid people are holding onto our approach and resistance, and we support the Islamic Republic of Iran in its rights and stance, and in any steps and measures it takes to defend itself and choices,” Qassem said.
According to the Saudi news outlet Al-Arabiya, Lebanon’s government informed the Iranian terrorist proxy that it would not tolerate its involvement in Tehran’s response against Israel, warning it would bear responsibility for dragging the country into war.
“The time when the organization bypassed the state in deciding to go to war is over,” the terrorist group was told, according to the report. “The decision of war and peace is exclusively in the hands of the Lebanese state.”
Before Israel’s military operations against Hezbollah last year, the terrorist group enjoyed major political and military influence across Lebanon.
The post Hezbollah Holds Fire After Israeli Strike on Iran, Signaling Weakened Posture Amid Pressure From Lebanese Gov’t first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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