US Will Store Aid on Secure Beach in Gaza as UN Pauses Distribution from Pier 

A truck carries humanitarian aid across Trident Pier, a temporary pier to deliver aid, off the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, near the Gaza coast, May 19, 2024. (US Army Central Command/Handout via Reuters)
A truck carries humanitarian aid across Trident Pier, a temporary pier to deliver aid, off the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, near the Gaza coast, May 19, 2024. (US Army Central Command/Handout via Reuters)
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US Will Store Aid on Secure Beach in Gaza as UN Pauses Distribution from Pier 

A truck carries humanitarian aid across Trident Pier, a temporary pier to deliver aid, off the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, near the Gaza coast, May 19, 2024. (US Army Central Command/Handout via Reuters)
A truck carries humanitarian aid across Trident Pier, a temporary pier to deliver aid, off the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, near the Gaza coast, May 19, 2024. (US Army Central Command/Handout via Reuters)

The US military said Monday that it plans to stockpile aid shipments on a secure beach in Gaza during a UN pause on distributing food from the American-built pier after one of the deadliest days of the Israel-Hamas war.

The UN World Food Program, which works with US officials to transfer desperately needed aid from the month-old pier to warehouses and local relief teams in Gaza, tweeted Monday that the UN would conduct a security review to assess the safety of its staff in handling aid deliveries from the pier. It said the pause would be temporary.

A humanitarian official familiar with the situation said the security review is expected to conclude within a few days and UN officials would then make decisions on resuming operations. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss planning.

The pause, which WFP head Cindy McCain first announced in a TV interview Sunday, is the latest trouble to hit the Biden administration's new sea route for bringing in aid to Palestinians. It also signals sharpened concern by the UN and relief organizations about their ability to safely care for Gaza's civilians during the eight-month-old war.

The review follows an Israeli military operation on Saturday that rescued four Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7, in the attack that triggered the war, and left 274 Palestinians and one Israeli commando dead.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said “it’s only normal” that UN humanitarian officials pause and review the security situation following the Israeli operation. McCain said Sunday that two of WFP’s warehouses had been “rocketed” and a staffer injured.

When such large-scale military operations take place, Dujarric said, “you can only imagine the difficulties in distributing the aid, both for the safety of those who are trying to get it and those who are trying to distribute it.”

Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said the delivery of aid from Cyprus to the pier was paused due to high seas Sunday and Monday but would resume Tuesday. He said there is enough space for aid to be stored in a secure holding area on the beach until agencies restart distribution into Gaza.

“It’s a pretty large area,” he told reporters. “I think we can continue to stockpile aid in the assembly area for onward distribution.”

The pause came just a day after the US military and the US Agency for International Development, which is coordinating logistics with relief groups, said Saturday that the pier restarted operations after repairs. Part of the structure broke apart in rough seas and bad weather late last month.

Saturday's fighting, followed by the pause for the security review, blocked the planned distribution of aid from the pier, the humanitarian official said.

President Joe Biden ordered the US military to construct the pier in March, in hopes of carving out an alternative aid route as the fighting and Israeli restrictions sharply limit shipments through land borders. But rough seas in the Mediterranean, insecurity within Gaza and a surge in fighting since early May mean the pier, completed in mid-May, has been able to operate for only about a week.

Ryder, pushing back against claims on social media, denied that any aspect of the pier or its equipment had been used in Saturday's military operation. The Pentagon says an area south of the pier was used for the return of the freed hostages back to Israel.

“Particularly in this environment, given what you’re seeing play out in the Israel-Hamas conflict, there is a lot of misinformation and disinformation about what U.S. forces are or are not doing,” he told reporters.

Ryder said the US did an air drop of more than 10 metric tons of ready-to-eat meals Sunday.

US and international officials and private aid organizations say only a steady daily flow of hundreds of truck shipments through land borders can address the need for food and emergency aid in Gaza. More than 1 million people there are facing famine and all 2.3 million are struggling for food.



Mideast Violence is Spiraling a Year Since the Gaza War Began

FILE - Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip walk through a makeshift tent camp in Deir al Balah, Gaza, Sunday, May 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)
FILE - Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip walk through a makeshift tent camp in Deir al Balah, Gaza, Sunday, May 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)
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Mideast Violence is Spiraling a Year Since the Gaza War Began

FILE - Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip walk through a makeshift tent camp in Deir al Balah, Gaza, Sunday, May 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)
FILE - Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip walk through a makeshift tent camp in Deir al Balah, Gaza, Sunday, May 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)

A year after Hamas’ fateful attack on southern Israel, the Middle East is embroiled in a war that shows no signs of ending and seems to be getting worse.
Israel's retaliatory offensive was initially centered on the Gaza Strip. But the focus has shifted in recent weeks to Lebanon, where airstrikes have given way to a fast-expanding ground incursion against Hezbollah militants who have fired rockets into Israel since the Gaza war began.
Next in Israel's crosshairs is archenemy Iran, which supports Hamas, Hezbollah and other anti-Israel militants in the region. After withstanding a massive barrage of missiles from Iran last week, Israel has promised to respond. The escalating conflict risks drawing deeper involvement by the US, as well as Iran-backed militants in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
When Hamas launched its attack on Oct. 7, 2023, it called on the Arab world to join it in a concerted campaign against Israel. While the fighting has indeed spread, Hamas and its allies have paid a heavy price.
The group’s army has been decimated, its Gaza stronghold has been reduced to a cauldron of death, destruction and misery and the top leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah have been killed in audacious attacks.
Although Israel appears to be gaining the edge militarily, the war has been problematic for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, too.
Dozens of Israeli hostages are languishing in Hamas captivity, and a year after Netanyahu pledged to crush the group in “total victory,” remnants of the militant group are still battling in pockets of Gaza. The offensive in Lebanon, initially described as “limited,” grows by the day. A full-on collision with Iran is a possibility.
At home, Netanyahu faces mass protests over his inability to bring home the hostages, and to many, he will be remembered as the man who led Israel into its darkest moment. Relations with the US and other allies are strained. The economy is deteriorating.
Here are five takeaways from a yearlong war that has upended longstanding assumptions and turned conventional wisdom on its head.
A region is torn apart by unthinkable death and destruction A long list of previously unthinkable events have occurred in mind-boggling fashion.
The Oct. 7 attack was the bloodiest in Israel’s history. In all, about 1,200 people died and 250 were taken hostage.
The ensuing war in Gaza has been the longest, deadliest and most destructive in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Gaza health authorities say nearly 42,000 people have been killed — roughly 2% of the territory’s entire population. Although they do not give a breakdown between civilians and combatants, more than half of the dead have been women and children. Numerous top Hamas officials have been killed.
The damage and displacement in Gaza have reached unseen levels. Hospitals, schools and mosques – once thought to be insulated from violence – have repeatedly been targeted by Israel or caught in the crossfire. Scores of journalists and health workers have been killed, many of them while working in the line of duty.
Months of simmering tensions along Israel's northern border recently boiled over into war.
A growing list of Hezbollah officials – including the group’s longtime leader -- have been killed by Israel. Hundreds of Hezbollah members were killed or maimed in explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies. Israel's ground offensive is its first in Lebanon since a monthlong war in 2006.
Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has displaced tens of thousands of Israelis and over 1 million Lebanese. Israel promises to keep pounding Hezbollah until its residents can return to homes near the Lebanese border; Hezbollah says it will keep firing rockets into Israel until there is a cease-fire in Gaza.
The leaders of Hamas and Israel appear in no rush for a cease-fire When the war erupted, the days appeared to be numbered for both Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
Netanyahu's public standing plummeted as he faced calls to step aside. Sinwar fled into Gaza’s labyrinth of tunnels as Israel declared him a “dead man walking.”
Yet both men — facing war crimes charges in international courts — remain firmly in charge, and neither appears to be in a rush for a cease-fire.
The end of the war could mean the end of Netanyahu's government, which is dominated by hard-line partners opposed to a cease-fire. That would mean early elections, potentially pushing him into the opposition while he stands trial on corruption charges. Also looming is the prospect of an unflattering official inquiry into his government's failures before and during the Oct. 7 attack.
Fearing that, his coalition has hung together even through mass protests and repeated disagreements with top security officials pushing for a deal to bring home the hostages. After a brief period of post-Oct. 7 national unity, Israel has returned to its divided self — torn between Netanyahu’s religious, conservative, nationalist right-wing base and his more secular, middle-class opposition.
Sinwar, believed to be hiding in Gaza’s tunnels, continues to drive a hard bargain in hopes of declaring some sort of victory. His demands for a full Israeli withdrawal, a lasting cease-fire and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for scores of hostages have been rejected by Israel — even as much of the international community has embraced them.
With cease-fire efforts deadlocked and Netanyahu’s far-right coalition firmly intact, the war could go on for some time. An estimated 1.9 million Palestinians remain displaced in Gaza while an estimated 68 hostages remain captive in Gaza, in addition to the bodies of 33 others held by Hamas.
Bitter enemies experience the limits of force Early in the war, Netanyahu promised to destroy Hamas' military and governing abilities.
Those goals have been achieved in many ways. Israel says it has dismantled Hamas’ military structure, and its rocket barrages have been diminished to a trickle. With Israeli troops stationed indefinitely in Gaza, it is difficult to see how the group could return to governing the territory or pose a serious threat.
But in other ways, total victory is impossible. Despite Israel’s overwhelming force, Hamas units have repeatedly regrouped to stage guerrilla-style ambushes from areas where Israel has withdrawn.
Across the Middle East, bitter enemies are witnessing the limits of force and deterrence.
Israel’s deepening invasion of Lebanon and repeated strikes on Hezbollah have failed to halt the rockets and missiles. Missile and drone attacks by Iran and its allies have only deepened Israel’s resolve. Israel is vowing to strike Iran hard after its latest missile barrage, raising the likelihood of a broader, regionwide war.
Without diplomatic solutions, the fighting is likely to persist.
Israel and Gaza will never be the same Israel is still deeply traumatized as people try to come to terms with the worst day in its history.
The Oct. 7 killings and kidnappings had an outsized impact on a tiny country founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Israelis' sense of security was shattered, and their faith in the military was tested like never before.
Photos of Israeli hostages are everywhere, and mass demonstrations are held each week calling on the government to reach a deal to bring them home. The prospect of ongoing war looms over families and workplaces as reserve soldiers brace for repeated tours of duty.
The trauma is far more acute in Gaza – where an estimated 90% of the population remains displaced, many of them living in squalid tent camps.
The scenes have drawn comparisons to what the Palestinian call the Nakba, or catastrophe – the mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the war surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948. The Palestinians now find themselves looking at a tragedy of even greater scale.
It remains unclear when displaced Palestinians in Gaza will be able to return home and whether there will be anything to return to. The territory has suffered immense destruction and is littered with unexploded bombs. Children are missing a second consecutive school year, virtually every family has lost a relative in the fighting and basic needs like food and health care are lacking.
After a hellish year, the Palestinians of Gaza have no clear path forward, and it could take generations to recover.
Old formulas for pursuing Mideast peace no longer work The international community’s response to this bloodiest of wars has been tepid and ineffective.
Repeated cease-fire calls have been ignored, and a US-led plan to reinstate the Palestinian Authority in postwar Gaza has been rejected by Israel. It remains unclear who will run the territory in the future or who will pay for a cleanup and reconstruction effort that could take decades.
One thing that seems clear is that old formulas will no longer work. The international community’s preferred peace formula – the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel – seems hopelessly unrealistic.
Israel’s hard-line government opposes Palestinian statehood, says its troops will remain in Gaza for years to come and has further cemented its undeclared annexation of the West Bank. The internationally recognized Palestinian Authority has been pushed to the brink of irrelevance.
For decades, the United States has acted as the key mediator and power broker in the region – calling for a two-state solution but showing little political will to promote that vision. Instead, it has often turned to conflict management, preventing any side from doing anything too extreme to destabilize the region.
This approach went up in smoke on Oct. 7. Since then, the US has responded with a muddled message of criticizing Israel’s wartime tactics as too harsh while arming the Israeli military and protecting Israel against diplomatic criticism. The result: The Biden administration has managed to antagonize both Israel and the Arab world while cease-fire efforts repeatedly sputter.
This approach has also alienated the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, complicating Kamala Harris’ presidential aspirations. The warring sides appear to have given up on the Biden administration and are waiting for the Nov. 5 US presidential election before deciding their next moves.
Whoever wins the race will almost certainly have to find a new formula and recalibrate decades of American policy if they want to end the war.