Thread by @sfrantzman

The US-built floating pier could be operational in coming days according to a briefing today. The pier will be off the coast of Gaza and will enable a new maritime corridor from Cyprus where cargo ships will arrive at the. pier and offload goods, then the items will be put on trucks to be shuttled to shore on smaller ships that offload them to a pier affixed to the shore; then the goods go inland.

A few takeaways from the briefing.

United States Agency for International Development Response Director Dan Dieckhaus and Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, Deputy Commander, United States Central Command spoke at the briefing. It was insightful into how this important mission is being characterized.

The briefing stressed that this maritime corridor is additive, it augments current aid delivery, it is NOT intended to replace any other crossings. For instance, the closed Rafah crossing with Egypt and Gaza still should be opened.

At the same time the officials also stressed that this is purely a humanitarian mission done in an "independent, neutral and impartial manner.” The comments appeared to try to show that while this is coordinated with Israel, they don't want it to be seen as controversial by the Palestinians, although this was not directly said.

It was clear the officials refused to mention the word "Hamas" during the briefing, despite discussing Israel's role and also calling on Israel to do certain things. That basically means that once again the terrorist group that runs most of Gaza and whose gunmen hijack trucks was basically not mentioned, which is always odd how this works, how the group that started the war is just kind of a giant elephant in the room, but everyone is supposed not to mention it.

The lack of mention of Hamas is fascinating because this is a designated terrorist group. It's not a "faction" that runs Gaza, it's a powerful group. Many NGOs have partnered with it over the years...and they don't even want to call it "terrorist"...but they also tend to refer to "armed groups" rather than referring to Hamas. This basically means Hamas is never critiqued...because it doesn't even exist in reports.

Instead, what one gets is general language such as "we call on all parties"...which parties? All. Israel and______? All.

I found this to be typical of these types of humanitarian discussions of Gaza...where the word "Hamas" is never mentioned and it's clear this is intentional.

With the exception of not mentioning Hamas, the briefing sheds light on the fact they don't want the maritime corridor to be used as an excuse to keep other crossings closed. Israel has increased the number of crossings in northern Gaza in the last months, with the Erez crossing and new Western Erez crossing now open, in addition to Gate 96. In southern Gaza the situation is now reversed, there are now less crossings.

According to the briefing the situation in Gaza remains "dire" and this is compounded by the current battles in Rafah and also food insecurity in both the north and south. It remains to be seen if the pier will be able to help this situation.

Note the language of the UN here...after gunmen were seen at their site..."all parties"...this is obviously the "approved" language that NGOs and int'ls and humanitarians use. Even if it's a Hamas guy seen at the site...it's "all parties"