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.
