$230m US humanitarian pier in Gaza operational for only 12 days

$230m US humanitarian pier in Gaza operational for only 12 days
Construction work on the floating Joint Logistics Over-The-Shore (JLOTS) pier in the Mediterranean Sea. (File/AFP)
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Updated 23 June 2024
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$230m US humanitarian pier in Gaza operational for only 12 days

$230m US humanitarian pier in Gaza operational for only 12 days
  • Pier has allowed for the delivery of roughly 250 truckloads of aid, less than half of the pre-war daily deliveries to Gaza

LONDON: The $230 million floating pier built by the US military for seaborne humanitarian deliveries to Gaza has been operational for only 12 days since its inauguration on May 17, The Guardian reported on Sunday.

On March 7, US President Joe Biden announced that the temporary pier “would enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day.”

The construction of the two necessary structures — a floating dock anchored offshore and a pier connected to the Gazan coast — took more than two months and involved about 1,000 soldiers, sailors and several ships, including the Royal Navy’s landing ship, Cardigan Bay, which served as accommodation.

Since its launch, the pier has allowed for the delivery of approximately 250 truckloads of aid, equating to 4,100 tonnes of supplies, which is less than half of the pre-war daily deliveries to Gaza. The aid arriving by sea has often remained on the beach due to a lack of trucks for distribution, a result of security concerns.

Rough seas in the eastern Mediterranean have posed unexpected challenges, rendering the joint logistics over-the-shore system less effective than anticipated. The structure was designed to operate in sea conditions up to “sea state 3,” with waves between 0.5 and 1.25 metres. However, it sustained damage during a storm on May 25 and has faced unseasonably choppy waters since then.

After repairs in Ashdod, Israel, the pier resumed operations on June 8 but faced further interruptions. It was dismantled again on June 14 as a precaution against impending storms. Despite being reinstalled, there are reports suggesting that the pier’s vulnerability to weather might lead to it being dismantled early, possibly as soon as next month.

“They just miscalculated,” Stephen Morrison, a senior vice-president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Guardian. “They didn’t fully understand what was going to happen with the weather … so the DoD [Department of Defence] walks away, humiliated in a fashion.”

While acknowledging the difficulties, the Pentagon has not confirmed plans for an early termination of the mission.

“We have not established an end date for this mission as of now, contrary to some press reporting on the matter,” chief spokesperson Maj Gen Patrick Ryder told The Guardian on Thursday.

The floating pier was intended to provide an alternative means of delivering aid to Gaza, bypassing Israeli land restrictions. However, aid workers expressed concerns that the significant resources invested in the effort detracted from political pressure on Israel to open land crossings, which remain the most effective way to deliver aid.

Ziad Issa, head of policy and research at Action Aid, noted a decline in aid deliveries to Gaza, with an average of fewer than 100 trucks arriving daily in early June.

The severe security conditions have hindered the distribution of aid in Gaza. The Rafah crossing from Egypt has been closed since May 7, following an Israeli military offensive, and the alternative Keren Shalom crossing in southern Israel has proved dangerous due to the volatile situation.

“It’s unsafe for aid workers and trucks to move because of the ongoing bombardments on Gaza,” Issa told The Guardian. The Israelis announced a “tactical pause” last week to allow an aid corridor through southern Gaza, but Issa said: “We haven’t seen any difference since these tactical pauses have come in place.”


 


Gaza rescuers say eight dead in Israel strike on school building

Updated 20 sec ago
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Gaza rescuers say eight dead in Israel strike on school building

Gaza rescuers say eight dead in Israel strike on school building
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal confirmed eight people, including two children and two women, were killed by Israeli shelling on the Halwa school
The Israeli military, in a statement, acknowledged it conducted a strike on the facility

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said an Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter on Saturday killed eight people, including two children, while the Israeli military said it targeted Hamas militants.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal confirmed eight people, including two children and two women, were killed by Israeli shelling on the Halwa school in the northern Gaza city of Jabalia.
Bassal said the strike wounded 30 people, including 19 children, and that the Halwa school housed “thousands of displaced people.”
The Israeli military, in a statement, acknowledged it conducted a strike on the facility.
It said the air force “conducted a precise strike on terrorists in a command-and-control center” that had previously served as the Halwa school in Jabaliya.
It said it targeted the premises because “the school had been used by Hamas terrorists to plan and execute attacks.”
The attack was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on school buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has raged for more than 14 months.
A strike on the United Nations-run Al-Jawni school in central Gaza on September 11 drew international outcry after the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said six of its staff were among the 18 reported dead.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where thousands of Gazans have sought shelter — a charge denied by the Palestinian militant group.
At least 46,537 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to data provided by the health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
The October 7 attack that triggered it resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.

Sudan army says entered key RSF-held Al-Jazira state capital

Sudan army says entered key RSF-held Al-Jazira state capital
Updated 25 min 54 sec ago
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Sudan army says entered key RSF-held Al-Jazira state capital

Sudan army says entered key RSF-held Al-Jazira state capital
  • The armed forces “congratulated” the Sudanese people in a statement on “our forces entering the city of Wad Madani this morning“
  • A video the army shared on social media showed fighters claiming to be inside Wad Madani

PORT SUDAN: The Sudanese military and allied armed groups launched an offensive Saturday on key Al-Jazira state capital Wad Madani, entering the city after more than a year of paramilitary control, the army said.
The armed forces “congratulated” the Sudanese people in a statement on “our forces entering the city of Wad Madani this morning.”
Sudan’s army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries have been at war since April 2023, leading to what the UN calls the world’s worst displacement crisis and declarations of famine in parts of the northeast African country.
A video the army shared on social media showed fighters claiming to be inside Wad Madani, after an army source told AFP they had “stormed the city’s eastern entrance.”
The footage appeared to be shot on the western side of Hantoub Bridge in northern Wad Madani, which has been under RSF control since December 2023.
The office of army-allied government spokesman and Information Minister Khalid Al-Aiser said the army had “liberated” the city.
With a months-long communications blackout in place, AFP was not able to independently verify the situation on the ground.
“The army and allied fighters have spread out around us across the city’s streets,” one eyewitness told AFP from his home in central Wad Madani, requesting anonymity for his safety.
Eyewitnesses in army-controlled cities across Sudan reported dozens taking to the streets celebrating the army offensive.
In the early months of the war between the army and the RSF, more than half a million people had sought shelter in Al-Jazira, before a lightning offensive by paramilitary forces displaced upwards of 300,000 in December 2023, according to the United Nations.
Most have been repeatedly displaced since, as the feared paramilitaries — which the United States this week said have “committed genocide” — moved further and further south.
The war has killed tens of thousands and uprooted more than 12 million overall, more than three million of whom have fled across borders.


Franco-Algerian influencer to stand trial in March

Franco-Algerian influencer to stand trial in March
Updated 11 January 2025
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Franco-Algerian influencer to stand trial in March

Franco-Algerian influencer to stand trial in March
  • A diplomatic row between France and Algeria has flared up over the arrests of several Algerian social media influencers accused of inciting violence
  • Sofia Benlemmane, a Franco-Algerian woman in her fifties, was arrested on Thursday

LYON: A Franco-Algerian influencer, arrested as part of an investigation into online hate videos, appeared before French prosecutors on Saturday and will stand trial in March, authorities said.
A diplomatic row between France and Algeria has flared up over the arrests of several Algerian social media influencers accused of inciting violence.
Sofia Benlemmane, a Franco-Algerian woman in her fifties, was arrested on Thursday.
Followed on TikTok and Facebook by more than 300,000 people, she is accused of spreading hate messages and threats against Internet users and against opponents of the Algerian authorities, as well as insulting statements about France.
She was ordered to appear before a criminal court on March 18, the public prosecutor’s office said.
She is being prosecuted for a series of offenses including incitement to commit a crime, death threats and “public insult based on origin, ethnicity, nation, race or religion.”
The blogger had insulted a woman during a live broadcast in September, shouting “I hope you get killed, I hope they kill you.”
Her lawyer Frederic Lalliard argued that Benlemmane had committed no criminal offense, even though her comments “may irritate or shock.”
Benlemmane, a former football player, made headlines in 2001 when she was given a seven-month suspended prison sentence for entering the Stade de France pitch outside Paris with an Algerian flag during a France-Algeria friendly match.
Although she was firmly opposed to the government in Algiers in the past, her views have since changed and she now supports the current authorities in Algeria.
Several other Algerian influencers have been the target of legal proceedings in France for hate speech.
Former prime minister Gabriel Attal said that France should cancel a 1968 accord with Algeria that gives Algerians special rights to live and work in France because of the dispute over what he called “preachers of hate.”
Algeria won independence from France in 1962 after a seven-year war.


Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says 32 killed in 48 hours

Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says 32 killed in 48 hours
Updated 11 January 2025
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Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says 32 killed in 48 hours

Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says 32 killed in 48 hours
  • The ministry said at least 109,571 people have been wounded in more than 15 months of war
  • The ministry of health added 499 deaths to its death toll on Saturday

JERUSALEM: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Saturday that 32 people were killed in the Palestinian territory over the past 48 hours, taking the overall death toll to 46,537.
The ministry said at least 109,571 people have been wounded in more than 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas, triggered by the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack.
The ministry of health added 499 deaths to its death toll on Saturday, specifying they have now completed the data and confirmed identities on files whose information was incomplete.
A source in the ministry’s data collection department told AFP that all the 499 additional deaths were from the past several months.
The number of dead in Gaza has become a matter of bitter debate since Israel launched its military campaign against Hamas in response to the Palestinian militant group’s unprecedented attack last year.
Israeli authorities have repeatedly questioned the credibility of the Gaza health ministry’s figures.
But a study published Friday by British medical journal The Lancet estimated that the death toll in Gaza during the first nine months of the Israel-Hamas war was around 40 percent higher than recorded by the health ministry.
The new peer-reviewed study used data from the ministry, an online survey and social media obituaries, but only counted deaths from traumatic injuries. It did not include those from a lack of health care or food, or the thousands of missing believed to be buried under rubble.
The UN considers the Gaza health ministry’s numbers to be reliable.


Lebanon’s new president says to visit Saudi Arabia on first official trip

Lebanon’s new president says to visit Saudi Arabia on first official trip
Updated 11 January 2025
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Lebanon’s new president says to visit Saudi Arabia on first official trip

Lebanon’s new president says to visit Saudi Arabia on first official trip
  • Lebanese leader tells crown prince that ‘Saudi Arabia would be the first destination in his visits abroad’

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s newly-elected president, Joseph Aoun, will visit Saudi Arabia following an invitation from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to a statement posted on the Lebanese presidency’s X account on Saturday.

Prince Mohammed has congratulated Aoun, during a phone call, on his election and conveyed to him the congratulations of Saudi King Salman.

The Crown Prince also expressed his sincere congratulations and hopes for success to Aoun and the people of Lebanon, with wishes for further progress and prosperity.

Aoun told the crown prince that “Saudi Arabia would be the first destination in his visits abroad,” it said, after the Saudi prince called to congratulate him on taking office on Thursday following a two-year vacancy in the position.

The statement did not specify a date for the visit.

Aoun, 61, was elected as the country’s 14th president by parliamentarians during a second round of voting on Thursday, breaking a 26-month deadlock over the position.

In his speech after taking his oath of office before parliament, he said that the country was entering a new phase.

The Mediterranean country has been without a president since the term of Michel Aoun – not related – ended in October 2022, with tensions between the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and its opponents scuppering a dozen previous votes.