U.S. officials warned that President Joe Biden’s plan for the U.S. military to build a floating pier to deliver aid to Gaza could endanger U.S. troops, even if he has pledged there will be no boots on the ground in Gaza, according to a report.
NBC News reported Saturday that current and former administration officials are worried the plan “carries security risks.”
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Specifically, they expressed concerns that since U.S. troops would not step foot on Gaza, non-U.S. personnel could be involved in ferrying the aid back and forth from the U.S. military to Gaza.
“Someone could tuck a bomb on a truck with a timer or remote detonator and cause a catastrophe,” a U.S. military official told NBC News.
As of now, the U.S. Navy is planning to build a dock several miles offshore from Gaza, where civilian ships would deliver aid. The aid would be loaded onto trucks and driven onto U.S. Army boats and ferried to a pier the Army is building that is fixed to the shore of Gaza.
MV Roy Benavidez, part of the U.S. Ready Reserve Fleet, left port Thursday to deliver equipment to the U.S. Army’s 7th Transportation Brigade to construct a temporary pier that will be used to move humanitarian aid into Gaza. (U.S. Navy photo by Ryan Carter/DVIDS)
Officials told NBC News that an option under consideration is to have drivers and guards from other nations drive the trucks from the pier onto land and to distribute the aid, and then drive the trucks back to the offshore pier to be ferried back to the Navy pier and reloaded. It is not yet determined who those drivers should be, according to the report.
Another potential option is to establish a security perimeter on Gaza protected by the Israel Defense Forces, but creating that perimeter could take extra time. In addition, the point of Biden’s floating pier plan was to bypass the Israeli government, which Biden administration officials say are not doing enough to allow aid deliveries to Palestinians.
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The report suggested that not all U.S. military officials are on board with the plan, which came after Biden faced mounting criticism from progressives and Muslim Americans angry over U.S. support for Israel in its war with Hamas. The war began after Hamas conducted a terrorist attack in southern Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 and kidnapping around 200.
Since Israel’s offensive against Hamas, progressives have staged protests across the country and Muslim Americans have called on voters to stay home during the November 2024 presidential election.
U.S. military officials told NBC News they first heard of the floating dock idea when Biden announced it at the State of the Union address on March 7.
A Navy official told reporters during a background briefing last week that a safety plan is being developed and that the safety of the sailors involved is a top concern.
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