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US Ship with Equipment for Building Pier is on its Way to Gaza

Humanitarian aid for Gaza is loaded on a platform at the port of Larnaca, Cyprus March 10, 2024. REUTERS/Yiannis Kourtoglou
Humanitarian aid for Gaza is loaded on a platform at the port of Larnaca, Cyprus March 10, 2024. REUTERS/Yiannis Kourtoglou
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US Ship with Equipment for Building Pier is on its Way to Gaza

Humanitarian aid for Gaza is loaded on a platform at the port of Larnaca, Cyprus March 10, 2024. REUTERS/Yiannis Kourtoglou
Humanitarian aid for Gaza is loaded on a platform at the port of Larnaca, Cyprus March 10, 2024. REUTERS/Yiannis Kourtoglou

A US Army vessel carrying equipment for building a temporary pier in Gaza was on its way to the Mediterranean on Sunday, three days after President Joe Biden announced plans to ramp up aid deliveries by sea to the besieged enclave where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been going hungry.
The opening of the sea corridor, along with airdrops by the US, Jordan and others, showed increasing alarm over Gaza’s humanitarian crisis and a new willingness to bypass Israeli control over land shipments.
Israel said it welcomed the sea deliveries and would inspect Gaza-bound cargo before it leaves a staging area in nearby Cyprus. The daily number of aid trucks entering Gaza by land over the past five months has been far below the 500 that entered before the war because of Israeli restrictions and security issues.
Meanwhile, Biden stepped up his public criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Biden said he believes Netanyahu is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel” in how he is approaching its war against Hamas in Gaza, now in its sixth month.
Speaking Saturday to MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart, the president expressed support for Israel’s right to pursue Hamas after the militants' Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, but said that Netanyahu “must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken.” He added that “you cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead."
In Gaza, Palestinian casualties continued to rise.
The Civil Defense Department said at least nine Palestinians, including children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City late Saturday.

Elsewhere, the bodies of 13 people, including women and children, were taken to the main hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah on Sunday, according to an Associated Press journalist. Relatives said the 13 were killed by Israeli artillery fire toward a large tent camp for displaced Palestinians in the coastal area east of the southern city of Khan Younis.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said Saturday that at least 30,960 Palestinians have been killed since the war began.

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Mother of Missing Journalist Austin Tice Says Trump Team Offered Help in Search 

Debra Tice, mother of journalist Austin Tice who disappeared while reporting in Syria in 2012, meets with Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Damascus, Syria, January 19, 2025. (Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham/Handout via Reuters)
Debra Tice, mother of journalist Austin Tice who disappeared while reporting in Syria in 2012, meets with Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Damascus, Syria, January 19, 2025. (Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham/Handout via Reuters)
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Mother of Missing Journalist Austin Tice Says Trump Team Offered Help in Search 

Debra Tice, mother of journalist Austin Tice who disappeared while reporting in Syria in 2012, meets with Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Damascus, Syria, January 19, 2025. (Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham/Handout via Reuters)
Debra Tice, mother of journalist Austin Tice who disappeared while reporting in Syria in 2012, meets with Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Damascus, Syria, January 19, 2025. (Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham/Handout via Reuters)

The mother of American journalist Austin Tice made her first visit to Syria in almost a decade Monday and said that the administration of President-elect Donald Trump had offered support to help find her son, who disappeared in 2012.

Debra Tice made the remarks at a news conference in Damascus in her first visit to the country since insurgents toppled President Bashar al-Assad last month. She did not present any new findings in the ongoing search.

Austin Tice disappeared near the Syrian capital in 2012, and has not been heard from since other than a video released weeks later that showed him blindfolded and held by armed men. Tens of thousands are believed to have gone missing in Syria since 2011, when countrywide protests against Assad spiraled into a devastating civil war.

Outgoing US President Joe Biden told reporters at the White House in December that he believes Washington can bring Tice back, while admitting that “we have no direct evidence” of his well-being.

“I have great hope that the Trump administration will sincerely engage in diligent work to bring Austin home.” Tice said. “His people have already reached out to me. I haven’t experienced that for the last four years.”

Syria's former government had publicly denied that it was holding him, but Tice hopes she will find him with the help of the new leadership. In December, she said the family had information from an unidentified source that her son was alive and well. She said Monday she still believes he is alive and in good health.

“Austin, if you can somehow hear this, I love you. I know you’re not giving up, and neither am I,” she said.

Tice said she had a productive meeting with Ahmad al-Sharaa, the leader of Syria’s new administration, who she said was “dedicated and determined” to bring back Austin and the others missing in the country.

She also visited two military intelligence prisons in Syria, known for their mass incarceration and systematic use of torture, which she described as an “unbelievably, horrible nightmare.”

Tice, who is from Houston, has had his work published by The Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and other outlets.