Maritime corridor for aid to Gaza will take two months to build and 1,000 U.S. forces, Pentagon says

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CBS News

March 8, 2024 / 6:23 PM EST


About 1,000 U.S. forces will be needed to build a temporary maritime corridor to get aid to the besieged Gaza Strip, Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said on Friday. No U.S. forces will be on the ground in Gaza, but the U.S. military will help build out a pier and causeway to transport aid.

"This is part of a full court press by the United States," Ryder said during a news briefing. "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 corridor's construction will take about 60 days, but once in place, it should be capable of providing about two million meals a day, Ryder said.

One of the units involved is the 7th Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary), which is based out of Fort Eustis-Langley in Virginia. There are still many logistical questions Ryder says the U.S. is discussing with partners, like who will provide security for the temporary causeway and who will distribute the aid once it gets to the shores of Gaza.

The broad outline of the plan is to load aid onto ships, potentially in Cyprus, and those ships will go to a U.S. military temporary pier in the eastern Mediterranean. At the pier, the aid will be transferred to smaller logistics vessels that will then sail to a U.S. military causeway attached to Gaza's shore.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maritime-corridor-construction-gaza-aid-us-military/

[Basic LA]

1. Fine for the long term. Kudos to Joe.

Now we need some supplemental game changer to begin in, say, 45 minutes. An hour, tops. Who could help us get food & water to them immediately? And what pressure could we bring to make this happen?

[mitch96]

2. Along with the maritime corridor/port, they should send hospital ships to tend to the medical patients in need.

[quakerboy]

3. How long would it take if we were invading instead of aiding?

That seems like not soon enough for starving kids.

That feels slower than we have gone getting aid started after a number of natural disasters world wide, and the contingency plans for this should probably have been laid out in our playbooks by december 2023, if not years ago.

[moniss]

4. The problem remains that control of the flow

of aid will remain with Israel. It won't matter if you have 10 corridors if they are all basically choked to a trickle. The situation is dire right now in the moment. Their needs to be a major increase in flow now. It is well into an emergency situation.

[elleng]

5. Yes, it is well into an emergency situation.