WASHINGTON: The US military finished installing a floating pier for the Gaza Strip on Thursday, with officials poised to begin ferrying badly needed humanitarian aid into the enclave besieged over seven months of intense fighting in the Israel-Hamas war.
The final, overnight construction sets up a complicated delivery process more than two months after US President Joe Biden ordered it to help Palestinians facing starvation as food and other supplies fail to make it in as Israel recently seized the key Rafah border crossing in its push on that southern city on the Egyptian border.
Fraught with logistical, weather and security challenges, the maritime route is designed to bolster the amount of aid getting into the Gaza Strip, but it is not considered a substitute for far cheaper land-based deliveries that aid agencies say are much more sustainable. The boatloads of aid will be deposited at a port facility built by the Israelis just southwest of Gaza City and then distributed by aid groups.
US troops will not set foot in Gaza, American officials insist, though they acknowledge the danger of operating near the war zone.
Heavy fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants on the outskirts of Rafah has displaced some 600,000 people, a quarter of Gaza’s population, UN officials say. Another 100,000 civilians have fled parts of northern Gaza now that the Israeli military has restarted combat operations there.
Pentagon officials said the fighting in Gaza wasn’t threatening the new shoreline aid distribution area, but they have made it clear that security conditions will be monitored closely and could prompt a shutdown of the maritime route, even just temporarily. Already, the site has been targeted by mortar fire during its construction and Hamas has threatened to target any foreign forces who “occupy” the Gaza Strip.
The “protection of US forces participating is a top priority. And as such, in the last several weeks, the United States and Israel have developed an integrated security plan to protect all the personnel who are working,” said Navy Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, a deputy commander at the US military’s Central Command. “We are confident in the ability of this security arrangement to protect those involved.”
Israeli forces will be in charge of security on the shore, but there are also two US Navy warships near the area in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the USS Arleigh Burke and the USS Paul Ignatius. Both ships are destroyers equipped with a wide range of weapons and capabilities to protect American troops off shore and allies on the beach.
Aid agencies say they are running out of food in southern Gaza and fuel is dwindling, which will force hospitals to shut down critical operations and halt truck deliveries of aid. The United Nations and other agencies have warned for weeks that an Israel assault on Rafah, which is on the border with Egypt near the main aid entry points, would cripple humanitarian operations and cause a disastrous surge in civilian casualties.
More than 1.4 million Palestinians — half of Gaza’s population — have been sheltering in Rafah, most after fleeing Israel’s offensives elsewhere.
The first cargo ship loaded with 475 pallets of food left Cyprus last week to rendezvous with a US military ship, the Roy P. Benavidez, which is off the coast of Gaza. The pallets of aid on the MV Sagamore were moved onto the Benavidez. The Pentagon said moving the aid between ships was an effort to be ready so it could flow quickly once the pier and the causeway were installed.
The installation of the pier several miles (kilometers) off the coast and of the causeway, which is now anchored to the beach, was delayed for nearly two weeks because of bad weather and high seas. The sea conditions made it too dangerous for US and Israeli troops to secure the causeway to the shore and do other final assembly work, US officials said.
According to a defense official, the Sagamore’s initial shipment was estimated to provide enough to feed 11,000 people for one month. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public.
Military leaders have said the deliveries of aid will begin slowly to ensure the system works. They will start with about 90 truckloads of aid a day through the sea route, and that number will quickly grow to about 150 a day. But aid agencies say that isn’t enough to avert impending famine in Gaza and must be just one part of a broader Israeli effort to open land corridors.
Biden used his State of the Union address on March 7 to order the military to set up a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza, establishing a sea route to deliver food and other aid. Food shipments have been backed up at land crossings amid Israeli restrictions and intensifying fighting.
Under the new sea route, humanitarian aid is dropped off in Cyprus where it will undergo inspection and security checks at Larnaca port. It is then loaded onto ships — mainly commercial vessels — and taken about 200 miles (320 kilometers) to the large floating pier built by the US military off the Gaza coast.
There, the pallets are transferred onto trucks, driven onto smaller Army boats and then shuttled several miles (kilometers) to the floating causeway, which has been anchored onto the beach by the Israeli military. The trucks, which are being driven by personnel from another country, will go down the causeway into a secure area on land where they will drop off the aid and immediately turn around and return to the boats.
Aid groups will collect the supplies for distribution on shore, with the UN working with the US Agency for International Development to set up the logistics hub on the beach.
Sabrina Singh, Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters that the project will cost at least $320 million, including the transportation of the equipment and pier sections from the United States to the coast of Gaza, as well as the construction and aid delivery operations.
US military says Gaza Strip pier project is completed, aid to soon flow as Israel-Hamas war rages on
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US military says Gaza Strip pier project is completed, aid to soon flow as Israel-Hamas war rages on
- Overnight construction sets up a complicated delivery process more than two months after US President Joe Biden ordered it to help Palestinians facing starvation
German lawyers ask court to block ship allegedly carrying explosives to Israeli company
- German-based Lubeca Marine, which owns the MV Kathrin, said the ship “was never scheduled to make any port calls in Israel”
BERLIN: Human rights lawyers have filed a court appeal in Berlin seeking to block a 150-metric-ton shipment of military-grade explosives aboard German cargo ship MV Kathrin which they say is to be delivered to Israel’s biggest defense contractor. The European Legal Support Center said on Wednesday the action was filed on behalf of three Palestinians from Gaza, arguing that the shipment of primarily RDX explosives could be used in munitions for Israel’s war in Gaza, potentially contributing to alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Israel denies accusations that it has committed war crimes in the Gaza Strip, saying its forces abide by international humanitarian law while fighting Palestinian militants who operate in densely populated civilian areas.
German-based Lubeca Marine, which owns the MV Kathrin, said the ship “was never scheduled to make any port calls in Israel” and had recently discharged its cargo, originally destined for Bar, Montenegro, without disclosing where the discharge took place.
The company declined to disclose details of the cargo for contractual reasons, but said it complied fully with all international and EU regulations, ensuring necessary permits are obtained before any operations.
The ELSC said the RDX shipment was destined for Israeli Military Industries, a division of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest defense contractor. Elbit Systems declined to comment.
“We never claimed that the Kathrin was bound for Israel (itself), it’s the cargo which is bound for Elbit Systems,” ELSC lawyer Ahmed Abed told Reuters regarding the group’s appeal filed at Berlin’s Administrative Court. “The company ignored all the warnings.”
LSEG data and vessel-tracking website Marine Traffic indicated that the MV Kathrin had docked in the major Egyptian Mediterranean port of Alexandria on Monday and was last seen there.
According to the port of Alexandria’s website, the ship, which it identified as German, unloaded military equipment in Alexandria and was set to depart on Nov. 5.
Blinken urges China to rein in Pyongyang amid warnings that North Korean troops were set to join Russia’s war against Ukraine
- Some 10,000 North Korean troops in Russia, 8,000 in Kursk region
- US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin believes Ukraine can hold Russian territory in Kursk
WASHINGTON: The United States expects North Korean troops in Russia’s Kursk region to enter the fight against Ukraine in the coming days, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday as he pressed China to use its influence to rein in Pyongyang.
Blinken spoke after North Korea conducted its longest-ever intercontinental ballistic missile test earlier on Thursday and South Korea warned that Pyongyang could get missile technology from Russia in exchange for helping with the war in Ukraine.
The top US diplomat said there were 10,000 North Korean troops in Russia, including as many as 8,000 in the Kursk region where Ukrainian forces continue to hold territory after fighting their way into the Russian border area in August.
At a press conference with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and their South Korean counterparts, Blinken said Russia has been training the North Korean soldiers in artillery, unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, and basic infantry operations, indicating they “fully intend” to use the forces in frontline operations.
They would become legitimate military targets if they enter the battlefield, Blinken said.
“We’ve not yet seen these troops deploy into combat against Ukrainian forces, but we would expect that to happen in the coming days,” he said.
During their meeting, the US and South Korea discussed a range of options for responding, Blinken added, saying Moscow’s use of North Korean soldiers in its “meat grinder” war against Ukraine was a “clear sign of weakness.”
Austin said the US would announce new security assistance for Ukraine in coming days.
Russia-North Korea Cooperation
Blinken and his South Korea and Japanese counterparts condemned the ICBM launch as a flagrant violation of UN Security Council resolutions. The flight-time of the missile was 87 minutes, according to South Korea, putting nearly all of the United States within range.
The Kremlin on Thursday declined to comment when asked if Russia was helping North Korea to develop its missile and other military technology.
Blinken said Beijing, like Washington, should be very concerned about what Russia might be doing in order to enhance North Korea’s military capacities because it was destabilizing to Asia.
Austin said the Pentagon was very early in its assessment phase of the launch “and we don’t see any indication at this point that there was Russian involvement.”
Blinken said the US and South Korea agreed China should do more to curb North Korea’s provocative actions and US officials had had a “robust conversation” with Beijing this week.
“They know well the concerns that we have, and the expectations that, both in word and deed, they’ll use the influence that they have to work to curb these activities,” Blinken said of Chinese officials.
Beijing, partners with both Moscow and Pyongyang, has so far repeated calls for deescalation by all sides and a political settlement to the Korean conflict.
The United States, France, Japan, Malta, South Korea, Slovenia and Britain requested a UN Security Council meeting over the ICBM launch and two diplomats said it would likely take place on Monday.
Washington says China, which entered a “no limits” partnership with Moscow ahead of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, has been supporting the Kremlin’s war with dual use goods to prop up the Russian defense industrial base.
China rejects the US accusations about what it calls normal trade with Russia.
Austin said Ukraine could hold on to Russian territory in Kursk, and that the number of North Korean troops pales in comparison to casualties Russian forces recently have been suffering — some 1,250 a day.
“I do believe that they can hold on to the territory, if they choose to do that. They do have options,” Austin said of Ukrainian troops.
Many Western analysts argue China should be alarmed by any North Korean participation in Russia’s war, saying it’s a sign Pyongyang has reduced its reliance on Beijing and that its involvement would galvanize closer ties between Washington’s European and Asian allies.
Nonetheless, Sydney Seiler, a former US national intelligence officer for North Korea, said China was not disturbed enough to actively oppose the deployments.
“I don’t think China openly supports this. But at the same time, they’re not going to do what’s necessary to stop it,” he said.
Kamala Harris says Trump’s comment on women ‘is offensive to everybody’
- Trump had said he would "protect" women whether they “like it or not,” referring to abortion restrictions that he would push for if he becomes president again
- “This is just the latest on a long series of reveals by the former president of how he thinks about women and their agency,” Harris responded
PHOENIX, Arizona: Kamala Harris said Thursday that Donald Trump’s comment that he would protect women whether they “like it or not” shows that the Republican presidential nominee does not understand women’s rights “to make decisions about their own lives, including their own bodies.”
“I think it’s offensive to everybody, by the way,” Harris said before she set out to spend the day campaigning in the Western battleground states of Arizona and Nevada.
She followed up those remarks at her rally in Phoenix: “He simply does not respect the freedom of women or the intelligence of women to know what’s in their own best interests and make decisions accordingly. But we trust women.”
The comments by Trump come as he has struggled to connect with women voters and as Harris courts women in both parties with a message centered on freedom. She’s making the pitch that women should be free to make their own decisions about their bodies and that if Trump is elected, more restrictions will follow.
Trump appointed three of the justices to the US Supreme Court who formed the conservative majority that overturned federal abortion rights. As the fallout from the 2022 decision spreads, he has taken to claiming at public events and in social media posts that he would “protect women” and ensure they wouldn’t be “thinking about abortion.”
At a rally Wednesday evening near Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump told his supporters that aides had urged him to stop using the phrase because it was “inappropriate.”
Then he added a new bit to the protector line. He said he told his aides: “Well, I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not. I am going to protect them.”
Harris said the remark was part of a pattern of troubling statements by Trump.
“This is just the latest on a long series of reveals by the former president of how he thinks about women and their agency,” she said.
Harris tied Trump’s comments to his approach to reproductive rights, but Trump generally speaks more of protecting women from criminals, terrorists and foreign adversaries, in keeping with the bleak picture he paints of a country in decline.
“I’m going to protect them from migrants coming in. I’m going to protect them from foreign countries that want to hit us with missiles and lots of other things,” Trump said during a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
He seemed to tie in abortion when he first used the “protector” language in a Truth Social post and at a rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 20. He assured the women who would be “protected” that they “will no longer be thinking about abortion.”
The dispute showed signs Thursday of further entrenching each candidate’s supporters.
It was not only women who described Trump’s remarks as offensive. At the Harris rally in Phoenix, Edison Kinlicheenie, 50, said he sees Trump more as a threat than a protector, noting that the former president has a track record of preying on women.
“I have a wife and a daughter, so I wouldn’t let no predator like that come around” them, Kinlicheenie said.
At a Trump rally in Albuquerque, Sarah Pyle, 41, cited the opposition to allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s events to portray Trump as someone who helps women.
“I don’t want my girls to grow up in a world like this,” the Albuquerque mother said, referring to the controversy. “We fought for women’s rights for so long, and now we’re giving them back to men. It makes no sense.”
More broadly, Trump and Republicans have struggled with how to talk about abortion rights, particularly as women around the nation are grappling with obtaining proper medical care because of abortion restrictions that have had implications far beyond the ability to end an unwanted pregnancy.
Trump has given contradictory answers about his position on abortion, at some points saying that women should be punished for having abortions and showcasing the justices he appointed. During his successful 2016 campaign, he told voters that if he were elected, he would appoint justices to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and said he was “pro-life.”
But in recent weeks he’s promised to veto a national abortion ban, after repeatedly refusing to make such a pledge. He’s said the states should regulate care and said some laws were “too tough.”
Since 2022, the patchwork of state laws on abortion has created uneven medical care. Some women have died. Others have bled in emergency room parking lots or became critically ill from sepsis as doctors in states with strict abortion bans send pregnant women away until they are sick enough to warrant medical care. That includes women who never intended to end pregnancies. Both infant and maternal mortality has risen.
Harris’ campaign has highlighted Trump’s statements around women. In one campaign ad, a woman who became gravely ill with sepsis after a pregnancy complication stands in front of a mirror looking at a large scar on her abdomen, as audio plays of Trump’s comments about protecting women.
Harris hopes abortion will be a strong motivator for women at the ballot box.
In early voting so far, 1.2 million more women than men have voted across the seven battleground states, according to data from analytics firm TargetSmart.
That doesn’t necessarily translate into Democratic gains. But in the 2020 presidential election, there was a 9 percentage point difference between men and women in support for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 110,000 voters.
The Democratic ticket was supported by 55 percent of women and 46 percent of men. That was essentially unchanged from the 2018 midterms, when VoteCast found a 10-point gender gap, with 58 percent of women and 48 percent of men backing Democrats in congressional races.
UN rapporteur urges climate activist’s release ahead of COP29
GENEVA: The UN rapporteur on environmental defenders on Thursday urged Azerbaijan to free Anar Mammadli, saying his detention seemed aimed at silencing climate advocates ahead of November’s COP29 summit.
Michel Forst voiced alarm over the alleged “persecution, penalization and harassment” of Mammadli, who has now been in pre-trial detention for six months on “allegedly trumped-up criminal charges” in what the rapporteur called “apparent reprisal for his environmental activism.”
“I am gravely concerned about the deterioration in the treatment of Mr.Mammadli and the crackdowns on civil society actors, including environmental defenders,” Forst said in a statement.
Mammadli risks up to eight years behind bars on smuggling charges which human rights groups claim are bogus.
He and activist Bashir Suleymanli had formed a civil society group called Climate of Justice Initiative, which set out to promote environmental justice in the tightly-controlled, oil-rich nation.
The COP29 UN climate summit is being held in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku from November 11-22.
Forst said it appeared that the charges and the lengthy detention “were a form of retaliation against Mr. Mammadli for his efforts in the lead up to COP29.”
His ongoing detention on charges subject only to a preliminary investigation “therefore appears grossly unreasonable and disproportionate.”
“The length of Mr. Mammadli’s pre-trial detention also strongly indicates that it is a measure that is punitive in nature, aiming to intimidate Mr. Mammadli and other environmental defenders from speaking out, particularly in the lead up to COP29. This is unacceptable.”
Mammadli’s health has deteriorated in detention and served to “further penalize” him, Forst said, calling for his immediate release and for the charges to be “immediately dropped.”
As UN special rapporteur, Forst is tasked with taking measures to protect any person experiencing or at imminent threat of penalization, persecution or harassment for seeking to exercise their rights under the convention.
Azerbaijan is a party to the convention.
The former Soviet republic wedged between Russia and Iran has faced considerable scrutiny over its hosting of COP29.
Germany to close Iranian consulates over execution
“We have repeatedly and unequivocally made it clear to Tehran that the execution of a German citizen will have serious consequences,” Baerbock said, announcing the closure of the consulates in Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg in a televised announcement.
The execution, announced on Monday, had already provoked tit-for-tat diplomatic protests, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz calling it a “scandal.”
“The fact that this assassination took place in the light of the latest developments in the Middle East shows that (Iran’s) dictatorial, unjust regime... does not act according to normal diplomatic logic,” Baerbock said.
“It is not without reason that our diplomatic relations are already at an all-time low,” she said.
The closures will affect a total of 32 consular staff, according to the foreign ministry.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry responded Thursday evening, denouncing the “irrational decision” that “cannot be justified,” and said it had summoned Berlin’s ambassador to Tehran to convey Iran’s “strong protest.”
Baerbock did not mention Iran’s embassy in Berlin but said Germany would “continue to maintain our diplomatic channels and our embassy in Tehran.”
Among other reasons, this was necessary in order for the government to continue to press for the release of the other German citizens whom “the regime is unjustly detaining,” she said.
Sharmahd, 69, had been sentenced to death in February 2023 for the capital offense of “corruption on Earth,” a sentence later confirmed by the Iranian Supreme Court.
He had been convicted of playing a role in a 2008 mosque bombing in the southern city of Shiraz, in which 14 people were killed and 300 wounded.
His family have long maintained that Sharmahd was innocent and Amnesty International said he had been the victim of a “show trial.”
But Iran has defended his execution and declared that “a German passport does not provide impunity to anyone, let alone a terrorist criminal.”
Germany is also understood to be pushing for further sanctions against Iran at the EU level.
“In Brussels I have been pushing for the Revolutionary Guards to be listed as a terror organization,” Baerbock said on Thursday.
The EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell earlier this week said the bloc condemned Sharmahd’s “killing in the strongest possible terms” and was “considering measures in response.”
Sharmahd, a German citizen of Iranian descent and a US resident, was a software engineer who had worked and written for an Iranian opposition group’s website based abroad that strongly criticized the Islamic republic’s leadership.
