23 March 2024

The US Port in North Gaza

Amidst the ongoing mass slaughter in Gaza, new testimonies emerge to show there are simply no limits and no end to the depravity we are witnessing.

Muath, a 29-year-old Emergency Doctor from Gaza comes from the Al-Shati refugee camp in the Gaza Governorate, situated along the Mediterranean Sea coastline.

The Al-Shati refugee camp was established in 1948 to provide shelter for approximately 23,000 Palestinians who had fled or were forcibly expelled from Jaffa, Lod, Beersheba, and nearby villages during the 1948 Massacre.

As of July 2023, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reported a population of 90,173 registered refugees, making it the third-largest refugee camp in the Palestinian Territories.

On October 7, Israeli occupation forces carpet-bombed Al-Shati. Muath's parents' five-story home was targeted, resulting in the slaughter of his mother, father, five brothers, two sisters, their spouses, and several grandchildren.

Unable to give his family members a proper burial, Muath resorted to visiting the ruins of his family home. He would pour water over the rubble, driven perhaps by an inexplicable hope that the water might somehow reach his loved ones where he couldn't. This act of pouring water onto the rubble and the trapped bodies of his loved ones became an almost daily ritual.

A few days ago, Muath discovered that the rubble of his family home and the bodies of his family members had disappeared. 

Muath then learned that the Americans had brought in one thousand soldiers, mechanical diggers, and equipment to transport rubble from the destroyed homes of Gazans to be used as building materials for a nearby port being constructed on the beach next to the former Al-Shati camp.

U.S. President Joe Biden announced a plan on March 9 to build a floating U.S. military port a few miles out to sea to speed up aid to Gaza. However, this could take up to 60 days.  Five months of war have created critical food shortages among Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians that in some areas now exceed famine levels, according to the United Nations. Gaza is on the verge of famine. This port just happens to be next to Palestine’s gas reserves.

On March 20th, Netanyahu reportedly proposed that the newly constructed makeshift port could also be utilised for deporting Palestinians. According to reports, he made these remarks during a private meeting of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Security Committee.

Muath has since left Gaza to join his wife and baby son in Alexandria. He still does not know the whereabouts of his family's remains. He is unable to comprehend the enormity of what has been done.

How will these war crimes be investigated when the evidence is being tampered with? It seems that this port will be too late to avert a famine. For Biden and Netanyahu, it has many other uses.