The United States will continue to lead the international humanitarian response to get more assistance into Gaza, including through the Amalthea corridor as well as airdrops with regional Partners, said Chief of Staff for the U.S. National Security Council (NSC) Curtis Ried.
In his opening remarks during a press conference on Thursday at the Joint Rescue Coordination Center (JRCC) in Larnaca, he said the United States and its partners share ‘the deep concerns about the insufficient amount of humanitarian aid reaching Palestinian civilians in Gaza’.
Noting that the pier the US military is constructing is estimated to be ready by 1st of May, Ried said ‘these efforts can and must be part of an immediate effort to increase the flow of aid, through all possible routes, including through Ashdod Port, more and expanded land routes, more crossings and most importantly more trucks going into Gaza’.
He said this was something that Washington will continue to raise with its Israeli counterparts on a daily basis.
‘We
‘ll also continue to underscore the urgency of reaching a ceasefire that facilitates the release of hostages and a surge of humanitarian assistance into Gaza’, the US diplomat added, notin ‘this is an urgent priority and the best way to alleviate suffering in Gaza.’
Regarding the international forum held in Larnaca on Thursday on the Amalthea maritime corridor initiated by Cyprus, he said ‘our team shared a detailed briefing on our effort to establish a temporary pier along the coast of Gaza which will help sustain the flow of additional humanitarian assistance into Gaza by this new maritime corridor’.
The US military, he said, ‘is doing everything they can to accelerate the deployment of this capability to make it operational prior to the May 1st target date, that they’ve set’.
At the same time, Ried said with throughout the course of discussions today ‘we worked with our partners to develop a list of assets and financial contributions that will need to establish operations across the maritime corridor, a
nd sustain operations in the long term once U.S military operations transition to a commercially-led effort’.
He described today’s meeting in Cyprus as ‘critical’ in going forward, adding ‘we’ll build on the work that we’ve done here during a pledging period, where we’ll seek to fill in material and financial gaps’.
Ried said ‘it’s our intent to continue this dialogue in the days and weeks ahead to ensure we maximise our impact on this common humanitarian platform instead of an advancing competing initiatives’.
The White House official also expressed ‘thanks to the Republic of Cyprus and its leaders. Not only have they hosted this critical meeting, but their work in establishing the Amalthea initiative laid the foundation for our joint efforts today. The Republic of Cyprus’, he said, ‘has turned its strategic location into a humanitarian solution and the United States is deeply grateful for their leadership and their Partnership’.
Asked why there was a delay in acting as regards the humanitarian aid, Ried
said ” Cyprus was certainly a leader early on in announcing the Amalthea Initiative and I think the United States and many of our partners were initially very focused on expanding land routes’. ‘It remains our view that land crossings should be the primary routes into Gaza…they are the way that we can move the maximum amount of assistance in. But after the turn of the year, we saw that we weren’t getting enough in via land routes so President Biden made the decision that we would do everything within our power to get as much aid into Gaza as possible, and that includes airdrops, the maritime quarter and our continued advocacy on the land routes.’
He said the pier has a target date of May 1st, but the military is ‘working very hard to advance that and hopefully we can see it operational a bit earlier than that’.
Invited to clarify about the military-led operation transitioning to a commercially-led effort, Ried said the pier will be temporary ‘and will be connected to land in Gaza on a landing site. And then
there will be a floating dock a few nautical miles offshore and commercial vessels will be able to come in and offload their cargo onto that floating dock. So the entire operation from Cyprus is not military-natured. There will be commercial element to it. Goods will come first to Cyprus, they will be inspected according to the mechanism Cyprus has set up and then brought onward. This is definitely a medium-term commitment from the US’, he said.
Noting that the US intend to ‘have the pier operational for months at least’ and although he could not say how in terms the aid would transition into a commercial operation, he added that ‘it is something that our military is thinking about and we will retrograde the pier itself, when there will be facilities that are built on land by partners that will be useful I think to anyone that will come in afterwards in terms of staging areas, warehouses etc’.
Asked if NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) will continue the effort until 1st May, he said “yes, I understand that WC
K intends to have further shipments…’.
About the inspection mechanism in Larnaca, Ried said ‘it was already proven to be very efficient with the screening of the first WCK shipment. And I understand that there are additional goods that are already pre-screened now in the warehouse at Larnaca port. So I hope that we can use some of the period between now and when our pier is operational kind of preload a series of screened goods but our understanding from both our Cypriot and Israeli colleagues, is that it was a very efficient screening process’.
Asked how the fund will work and who will monitor it, Ried said this was a central part of the discussions today and Sigrid Kaag, the UN’s new Gaza aid coordinator laid out an offer from the U.N to set up a U.N fund quickly that will be managed quickly by the Republic of Cyprus. ‘And I think this would be beneficial for a lot of donor countries because most of our governments have direct channels into the UN already. We know how to quickly distribute grants into UN
managed funds. So I think that that would be a good way to manage in a way that everyone feels comfortable with, you know the oversight arrangements’.
To a question about how many shipments can Amalthea handle and to outline what these assets are, Ried said that it will be a significant addition to the amount of assistance getting into Gaza.
On the issue of assets, he said they were talking about the non-military components. The assistance will be either coming in through UN agencies that procure significant amount of aid bound for Gaza.
Invited to elaborate how the aid will be delivered and how on the ground the landing zone will be secured, Ried said ‘the way this operation is being planned is that we won’t have American boots on the ground. So there’s no plan for American personnel to go ashore’.
The Israeli military will play an important role in securing a broad area and having kind of the outer perimeter secured, he said. ‘We are also talking to a number of countries about potentially serving as a s
ecurity partner within that perimeter..and then what you have within the secured internal perimeter is a bit of a handoff area, so trucks will come off of the pier, they will drive through to what we’re calling area B.E. and will drop off the goods and then depart and then you will have trucks with Palestinian drivers from Gaza that will come in and pick up the goods. And we’re in discussions with the U.N about playing a role in terms of running that kind of, you know, initial reception warehouse and then onward a distribution facility’.
Ried said UN agencies have the best network in terms of distribution across Gaza, be it UNRWA, WHO, etc, as well as a number of international NGOs that have been quite effective in distributing, ‘but we would like to find one UN agency to partner with that would kind of run that initial reception and warehousing facility.’
Asked if that will change interaction with UNRWA in the future, he said “we’ve been very clear that we have obviously serious concerns over the allegatio
ns that Israel has raised regarding UNRWA staff being involved in October 7th and we paused our funding to UNRWA.” “We must continue to make use of UNRWA distribution networking in Gaza, because there isn’t a way to replace it quickly” he said, adding that “currently it’s the best method that we have to deliver assistance’.
Source: Cyprus News Agency
