Biden Seeks to Boost Emergency Aid to Gaza With Offshore Pier

WASHINGTON—President Biden is set to announce in his State of the Union speech Thursday that the U.S. military will install a temporary pier off the Gaza coast for cargo ships to unload food, water and other emergency supplies, boosting the direct American role in addressing the strip’s humanitarian crisis.

Biden directed the military to carry out the emergency project, aiming to ease food shortages and lack of shelter and medical services for Gaza’s 2.2 million residents, according to U.S. officials who briefed reporters ahead of Biden’s speech Thursday evening.

Once the pier is in place, aid shipments enabled by the U.S. and a coalition of partners and allies will flow to Gaza, initially from Cyprus, according to U.S. officials who briefed reporters ahead of Biden’s speech Thursday evening.

The forces that will be required to complete this mission are either already in the region or will begin to move there soon, they said. The mission, which is expected to last only temporarily, won’t require U.S. boots on the ground in Gaza, officials said.

The Biden administration is looking to at least one American company, Fogbow, to coordinate deliveries to Gaza through the new maritime corridor using commercial ships, according to Gulf officials and people familiar with the plan.

Fogbow, which is made up of former U.S. government, military and United Nations officials, will lead efforts to secure the ships, coordinate with the Israeli government, the U.N. and Gazans on the ground, those people said.

The Qatari government has approved funding to support the use of commercial ships to Gaza, Qatari officials said. Administration officials said that they are exploring options for shipping aid by sea, but that they haven’t reached a formal agreement with any company.

Biden’s expected announcement follows the commencement of airdrops by the U.S. military and other countries last week into Gaza. U.S. officials have expressed frustration in recent weeks that humanitarian convoys moving by truck into Gaza have dropped sharply in recent weeks, because of worsening security and a refusal by Israel to open additional border crossings.

The U.S., along with Jordan’s Royal Air Force, conducted a humanitarian airdrop of 38,000 pounds of meals into Gaza Thursday, according to the Pentagon.

U.S. officials said they would seek to coordinate with Israel on aid deliveries, as well as work with the United Nations and humanitarian nonprofit groups on the distribution of assistance within Gaza. But the U.S.-led effort to boost aid into Gaza by sea and air would go ahead even without Israeli participation, the officials said.

“The president has directed that we look at all options—that we not wait for the Israelis, and that we are pursuing every channel possible to get assistance into Gaza,” one senior official said. 

The assistance will need to be transported by land within Gaza to reach those in need once it arrives at the pier, U.S. officials said, adding that they are working with the U.N. and other partners to find safe routes within Gaza for distribution of the assistance. 

“It certainly will be complex to work out, but I think the more avenues we have to get assistance in the more we will be able to reliably move it around within Gaza as well,” a U.S. official said.

The United Arab Emirates has been working for more than a month to mobilize international efforts to reopen the maritime corridor from Cyprus to Gaza, which has been inactive since 2005, an official from the Gulf government said.

“We bring to the table the funding, which we are doing, but also we bring to the table an ability to galvanize others and to coordinate closely with others,” the U.A.E. official said.

Cyprus first proposed establishing a sea corridor in October but for months it got little traction. Now, work is under way to prepare a specific area of the beach in north Gaza which Israel has designated for receipt of the first sea shipments under the Emirati-backed pilot, the U.A.E. official said.

The trip between Cyprus and the Gaza coastline would take approximately 23 hours, those familiar with the plan said. If the plan works, officials hope that within 28 days, 200 truck loads worth of aid would arrive every day.

According to the plan, officials from Israel, which is concerned about aid falling into the hands of Hamas, would oversee Cypriot inspection of the cargo going onto the ships, Gulf officials said.

The operation is set to begin in early Ramadan, which starts next week. It will use a landing craft utility, a type of amphibious vehicle that can operate in shallow water without a port, since Gaza’s seaport was largely destroyed in the early weeks of the war.