RSS
US-Built Gaza Humanitarian Aid Pier Repairs Cost at Least $22 Million
A US soldier leaves a cordoned-off area as other troops work on a beached vessel, used for delivering aid to Palestinians via a new US-built pier in Gaza, after it got stuck trying to help another vessel behind it, on the Mediterranean coast in Ashdod, Israel, May 25, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The newly repaired humanitarian aid pier off the Gaza coast reportedly cost American taxpayers at least $22 million.
Choppy seas shredded the pier to pieces last month, hindering efforts to transport additional humanitarian aid into the war-torn enclave ruled by the Palestinian terror group Hamas. American servicemen then immediately began repairing the pier, whose construction was pushed by US President Joe Biden earlier this year, in the Israeli port city of Ashdod.
While rebuilding the structure, US military officials assessed that the total cost in repairs might run up to $28 million, the Washington Post reported. Nonetheless, the Pentagon decreased the pier’s expected overall cost from $320 million to $230 million, citing low costs for contracted vehicles, drivers, and the loan of a British military ship.
Sabrina Singh, a US military spokeswoman, shared that the overall cost of the pier could change, “depending on the length of the mission and future costs,” such as the need for additional repairs. Singh added on Wednesday that the pier is expected to complete repairs and resume operations “at the end of the week.”
On Friday, Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, deputy commander of US Central Command, confirmed that the pier has been completely repaired and is ready to receive aid shipments.
“I’m very pleased to announce that earlier this morning, in Gaza, US forces successfully attached the temporary pier to the Gaza beach. Israeli Defense Force engineers provided all the necessary support to ensure the safe emplacement of the pier to the beach,” Cooper told reporters.
“We anticipate that our goal will be to deliver 500,000 pounds over the beach initially and then ramp that up soon thereafter,” Cooper added.
The Biden administration greenlighted the construction of the pier in March to hasten the influx of humanitarian aid into Gaza. The administration cited the deteriorating conditions and a potential famine in the enclave amid Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas. Though Israel has received international condemnation over the humanitarian condition in Gaza, Egypt has blocked its side of the Rafah crossing, slowing the flow of aid to Palestinian civilians.
The pier has been a target for intense scrutiny since its construction. Critics argue that the pier has unnecessarily endangered American servicemen, citing critical injuries of US soldiers assigned to work on the structure. They also claim that any aid delivered across the pier is likely to end up in the hands of Hamas, which has long been accused of stealing aid meant for Gazan civilians.
So far, the pier has been ineffective in alleviating the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. None of the 569 metric tons of aid delivered on the pier has been distributed to Palestinian civilians, according to the Pentagon. Trucks carrying humanitarian aid were ransacked and stripped clean by looters before reaching their destinations.
The post US-Built Gaza Humanitarian Aid Pier Repairs Cost at Least $22 Million first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login