Netanyahu behind Biden plan to deliver Gaza aid by sea
The temporary port the US plans to build in Gaza could be used to ethnically cleanse Palestinians
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu initiated the plan to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza via Cyprus in collaboration with US President Joe Biden, a senior diplomatic source told The Jerusalem Post on 10 March.
"Netanyahu took the initiative to establish maritime humanitarian aid for the civilian population in the Gaza Strip, in collaboration with the Biden administration," the source stated.
According to the source, Netanyahu discussed with President Biden the concept of "delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza via the sea, contingent on an Israeli inspection in Cyprus" on 22 October, just two weeks after the war began.
"Then, on October 31, Prime Minister Netanyahu outlined this strategy to Cypriot President [Nikos] Christodoulides," the source added.
Netanyahu and Biden discussed the proposal again on 19 January.
The Jerusalem Post notes further that the source, viewed as close to the Prime Minister, suggested that "Biden was simply implementing a plan by Netanyahu, not actually initiating anything new."
However, during last week's State of the Union address, Biden announced as his own a plan for the US military to build an emergency temporary port off the Gaza coastline to help facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza by sea.
Media reports suggested that Biden had proposed the plan out of frustration with Netanyahu's refusal to allow aid into Gaza, where Palestinians have begun to die of starvation. Reports also suggested that Biden opposed Netanyahu's plan to launch a ground invasion of Rafah, the city on the Egypt border where over 1 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering. Aid groups have warned an Israeli invasion of Rafah would be a "blood bath."
Reports that Netanyahu initiated the plan to send aid by sea and that he and Biden are cooperating to make it a reality raise fears that the temporary port is being built for another purpose.
Such a plan would shift responsibility and condemnation away from Israel for refusing to allow aid to Gaza.
It may also open the door to ethnic cleansing.
On 13 October, one week before Netanyahu suggested delivering aid by sea, the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence leaked a plan to forcibly deport Gaza's 2.3 million inhabitants under a humanitarian guise. The plan proposed making Gaza so dangerous that its residents would voluntarily choose to leave the bombarded and besieged strip as refugees to Egypt, Greece, Spain, or even Canada.
This would, in turn, open the way for Israel to annex a depopulated Gaza and build Jewish settlements there.
If Israeli forces invade Rafah, as Netanyahu is threatening, after the temporary US port is established, this will make it possible for Israel to force large numbers of Palestinians to leave Gaza by sea, unable to ever return.