MHCE MARCH 2024

10 | MHCE - News www.mhce.us MARCH 2024 EDITION WWW.MHCE.US
Monthly Newsletter | 11
None of the American forces will
Hamas militants’ surprise assault on
It was not clear Friday how much
enter Gaza at any time, including to
Israelis on Oct. 7.
the new aid operations would cost
deliver aid or build the temporary
pier, he said at the Pentagon. Ryder
said the pier should be operational
within about 60 days.
Humanitarian aid has been slow
getting into Gaza for reasons
including blockades at land crossings
and tight controls of aid trucks by
U.S. taxpayers, Ryder said.
The Navy will deploy the floating
pier and causeway toward Gaza via
ships, and soldiers and sailors will
“We’re working to set this up as
Israel, which has accused Hamas of
prepare them for use, Ryder said.
quickly as possible, but we expect
stealing humanitarian goods.
Commercial vessels will be able to
1,000 US Troops
Will Deploy for
Temporary Port
Operations to
Move Aid into
Gaza
The Pentagon will soon deploy
about 1,000 American troops to
build a temporary seaport just off the
coast of war-torn Gaza to provide
its inhabitants some 2 million meals
per day, a Defense Department
spokesman said Friday.
The American troops will deploy a
floating pier and a roughly 1,800-foot
causeway in the Mediterranean Sea
off Gaza’s coast, where commercial
vessels can dock and offload aid to
be transported by smaller vessels
and vehicles into Gaza, said Air
Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the
Pentagon’s top spokesman.
The operation will use a makeshift
dock known as a Joint Logistics
Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, and
include Navy and Army personnel,
Ryder said.
that it will take several weeks to
plan and execute,” he said. “Once
operational the actual amount of
aid delivered will depend on many
variables and will likely scale over
time. However, we expect that
deliveries via JLOTS could provide
more than 2 million meals to the
citizens of Gaza per day.”
Not all the forces to be used in the
operation had been selected as of
Friday, Ryder said. However, the
Army’s 7th Transportation Brigade
based at Joint Base Langley-Eustis
in Virginia had already been notified
it would be deployed, he said. That
unit is described by the Army as its
JLOTS experts.
President Joe Biden announced
Thursday during his State of the
Union speech that he ordered the
Pentagon to conduct the new aid
mission. He also called on Israel
to do more to protect civilians and
ensure they receive humanitarian aid
as the Israelis fight Hamas militants
in the Palestinian enclave.
The U.N. said the roughly 2.3
million people in Gaza now face
near-famine conditions amid the
fighting launched in the wake of
The United States in recent days
has begun airdropping some
humanitarian aid into Gazavia
Air Force C-130s. The U.S. and
Jordanian militaries airdropped
about 11,500 meals into northern
Gaza on Friday, according to U.S.
Central Command, which oversees
American military operations in the
Middle East. To date, the United
States has airdropped about 124,000
meals to Gazans, Ryder said.
He also said the U.S. would continue
to press Israel to allow more
humanitarian aid into Gaza via land
crossings, but it would continue to
work to find creative ways to get
meals to the enclave’s civilians.
“This is part of a full-court press
by the United States to not only
focus on working on opening up
and expanding routes via land —
which of course are the optimal way
to get aid into Gaza — but also by
conducting air drops, and now, as the
president has said, not enough aid is
getting in, and so this is a capability
that we have [and] it’s a capability
that we are going to execute,” the
general said.
dock at the floating pier, where their
cargo can be offloaded and reloaded
onto smaller Navy logistics support
vessels, he said.
Those Navy ships will then deliver
the aid onto the causeway, where it
will be loaded onto trucks that will
drive it onto the beach in Gaza for
delivery, Ryder said.
The aid will be driven into Gaza
by vetted U.S. partners and not
American troops, he said. The U.S.
was in talks with partner nations,
nongovernmental organizations and
Israel about who would conduct
those operations.
“The concept that is being planned
involves the presence of U.S.
military personnel on military
vessels offshore but does not
require U.S. military personnel to
go ashore,” Ryder said.
He said the U.S. military would work
to ensure proper security measures
were in place on the ground and
would take precautions to protect
its troops offshore. He declined to
provide specifics about such plans
to protect American forces.