Preparations for maritime dock for aid shipments to Gaza continue

GAZA CITY, Palestine

Preparations for the maritime dock in an area under Israeli control southwest of Gaza City continued on Tuesday, aiming to receive aid ships to the territory as the destructive Israeli war entered its sixth month.

Large vehicles were seen transporting cement blocks from the port of Khan Younis to Gaza City, near the Beddour area.

“We are transporting cement blocks from the port of Khan Younis to the new floating port in Gaza City,” a Palestinian truck driver, Mohammed al-Nunu, told Anadolu.

“We have been working for three days to transport the cement blocks in preparation for the arrival of aid ships from Cyprus,” he added.

Heavy machinery has begun preparations to build a temporary floating dock off the coast of Gaza to provide aid to people in the besieged Palestinian enclave.

Witnesses told Anadolu that heavy machinery is operating near the Al-Baydar area, which is controlled by Israeli forces.

The move was announced by US President Joe Biden in his State of the Union address last week, as Israel has restricted land routes into Gaza, slowing the flow of aid to a trickle.

Israel's public broadcaster KAN said international relief organizations, with Tel Aviv's approval, recently initiated the construction of the dock on a northern Gaza Strip beach, facilitating the docking of humanitarian aid vessels.

Israel started its war on Gaza after the Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border incursion by Hamas. It has since killed more than 31,300 Palestinians and pushed the territory to the brink of famine.

In an attempt to address the crisis, the US and other countries began airdrops of aid for Gaza, but that can provide only a limited amount of aid.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Palestinian enclave, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while most of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which in an interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul