Temporary Gaza port could be used to displace Palestinians, politician warns

By Qais Abu Samra

RAMALLAH (AA) – A Palestinian politician on Thursday voiced concerns about a planned pier to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip being used to displace Palestinians from the enclave.

“The proposed pier will be under Israeli control and may be used to perpetuate the reoccupation of Gaza,” Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, said in a statement.

He called the months-long construction of the pier by the US “an evasion of its legal and moral responsibility for the Gaza blockade.”

“There are real fears that Israel could use it to displace Gaza’s population and carry out ethnic cleansing, which it failed to achieve by force,” he added.

The US has said it will set up a temporary pier off Gaza to deliver humanitarian supplies to the Palestinians in the besieged territory, with a ship carrying equipment for the construction work on the structure already on its way.

Israel has waged a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip since a Hamas attack last October which killed some 1,200 people.

More than 31,000 people have since been killed and 73,000 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Palestinian enclave, leaving its nearly 2.3 million population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

Barghouti also said the recent airdrops of humanitarian aid “will not eradicate famine in Gaza.”

“The only solution is to break the siege through the Rafah crossing (with Egypt) and force Israel to open all land terminals to deliver aid and medicine to all areas of the Gaza Strip, including the north,” he added.

Palestine and other international actors have pushed back at the airdrops and planned maritime aid deliveries, saying deliveries of aid by land are quicker and more effective.

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 Rania Abu Shamala​​​​​​​