By Al-Fassel | 2024-03-19

Senior officials from the United States, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, European Union (EU) and United Nations (UN) will be in Cyprus this week to discuss the further activation of a maritime corridor to Gaza.

Topics on the table include the possible establishment of a common fund to support and sustain the maritime corridor, as well as setting up the means to coordinate in-kind and financial contributions to this end.

They also include in-depth briefings on US military planning efforts to establish a temporary pier able to receive significant quantities of humanitarian assistance.

Last week, senior officials joined UN senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza Sigrid Kaag for a virtual ministerial meeting to advance planning to open a maritime corridor to deliver aid to Gaza by sea.

Meeting on March 13, the ministers agreed there is "no substitute to land routes via Egypt and Jordan and entry points from Israel into Gaza for aid delivery at scale," the governments said in a joint statement.

They also agreed that opening Israel's Ashdod port to humanitarian assistance would be "a welcome and significant complement to the corridor."

The sea corridor is part of a comprehensive strategy "to make sure that we're doing everything possible by every means possible to surge support to those who need it -- by land, by sea, by air," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Pier plans move forward

US plans for a temporary pier will "take time to actually put in place, although we're working on it as expeditiously as possible," Blinken said.

"We want to get this up and running as quickly as possible, but it demands tremendous coordination among the donor countries, among the participating countries, and of course with Israel," he said.

Four US Army vessels departed a base in the United States on March 12 carrying about 100 soldiers and equipment needed to build the temporary port.

It will take the four ships roughly 30 days to make the voyage.

The new port facility, which will consist of an offshore platform and a pier to bring aid ashore, is expected to be up and running within two months, US Army Brig. Gen. Brad Hinson said.

"Once we get fully mission-capable, we will be able to push up to two million meals, or two million bottles of water, ashore each day," he said.

A total of some 500 troops from the 7th Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary) will take part in the operation, Hinson said.

"They can provide sustainment support over the water in austere environments. They are trained to do this, and they've gone on many exercises to be ready to provide this capability," he said.

Ensuring flow of aid

A first Gaza-bound aid ship, Open Arms, began to unload 200 tons of humanitarian aid in Gaza on March 15, with a second shipment lined up to follow from the Cypriot port of Larnaca.

The United States "has been leading efforts from the very beginning to try to ensure that assistance gets to those who need it. We've had significant ups and downs, periods of interruption, disruption," Blinken said.

But humanitarian assistance through the Rafah crossing with Egypt and via the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel is "getting back to levels that we'd gotten it to some weeks ago -- about 200 trucks a day," he said.

On March 12, the World Food Program was able to resume aid delivery to Gaza.

Morocco made its first aid delivery via Kerem Shalom last week.

Also last week, the first shipments to north Gaza through a new crossing at the 96th gate began, Blinken said, and flour flowed from Ashdod port.

"We're working to make sure that inspections are accelerated and road repairs move forward, so that we can also increase the flow that's going from Jordan into Gaza," he said. "That's a critical route for supplies."

"When you have a sustainable, predictable, confident supply of assistance going in, that will give people confidence that food is there, it'll keep coming, they can rely on it," Blinken said.