“There was an electric shock, an awareness of the acuteness of the humanitarian assistance crisis,” observes the ICRC spokesperson

US President Joe Biden announced on Thursday March 7 that the US military would build a temporary port off the coast of Gaza in order to deliver more humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory besieged by Israel. “Good news”reacted Friday on franceinfo the spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Lucile Marbeau. “That will take time”, she warned. The construction of the temporary port will take several weeks and will be carried out in partnership with “allies” on the ground, as well as with the UN and humanitarian organizations, senior US officials said.

“We feel that there has been an electric shock, an awareness of the acuteness of the assistance crisis today in the Gaza Strip, with the tragedy of last week”estimated Lucile Marbeau, referring to the distribution of aid which turned into a tragedy. “A port that would allow containers to arrive would be significantly more substantial compared to airdrops which were a truly desperate solution”, she emphasized. The United States and Jordan carried out a third airdrop of aid to Gaza in a week on Thursday, which was of limited effectiveness and constituted a “water drop”, in the eyes of the ICRC spokesperson. Humanitarian aid, subject to the green light from Israel, is currently only arriving in trickles in the Palestinian enclave, plunged into a serious humanitarian crisis since October 7 and the response led by the Israeli army.

The establishment of a port is good news in securing humanitarian distributions, according to Lucile Marbeau. The spokesperson for the humanitarian agency is also campaigning for a “secure humanitarian space”. “We shouldn’t have to die to try to feed these children, nor should we have to fight”, she regretted. Pending the establishment of a temporary port in Gaza, “assistance must arrive massively by land but also for organizations to be able to operate concretely on the ground and work towards secure distribution”she insisted.