(1 May 2024)
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RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wadi Gaza, Gaza Strip – 30 April 2024
1. Various of USNS Roy P. Benavidez seen from the coast of Gaza Strip
2. Various of people looking and U.S. Navy ship seen behind
3. Various of USNS Roy P. Benavidez and other ships seen off shore Gaza Strip
STORYLINE:
A US Navy ship and several Army vessels involved in an American-led effort to bring more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip are offshore of the enclave and building out a floating platform for an operation that the Pentagon has said will cost at least 320 million U.S. dollars.
Nearly two months after President Joe Biden gave the order, US Army and Navy troops are assembling a large floating platform several miles off the Gaza coast that will be the launching pad for deliveries.
On Tuesday the USNS Roy P. Benavidez was about 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) from the port on shore, where the base of operations for the project is being built by the Israeli military.
The USAV General Frank S. Besson Jr., an Army logistics vessel, and several other Army boats are with the Benavidez and working on the construction of what the military calls the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, system.
Under the plan by the U.S. military, aid will be loaded onto commercial ships in Cyprus to sail to the floating platform now under construction off Gaza.
The pallets will be loaded onto trucks, which will be loaded onto smaller ships that will travel to a metal, floating two-lane causeway.
The 550-meter (1,800-foot) causeway will be attached to the shore by the Israeli Defense Forces.
Aid has been slow to get into Gaza, with long backups of trucks awaiting Israeli inspections.
The U.S. and other nations also have used air drops to send food into Gaza.
The U.S. military official said deliveries on the sea route initially will total about 90 trucks a day and could quickly increase to about 150 trucks daily.
Aid organizations have said several hundred such trucks are needed to enter Gaza every day.
Gaza, home to 2.3 million people, has found itself on the brink of famine.
According to local authorities, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military operation following the Hamas attack on October 7th that killed about 1,200 people and where 250 were taken hostages.
Some released during a week ceasefire last November.
AP video shot by Abdel Kareem Hana
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