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Jumblat ridicules Biden's 'fictitious' Gaza pier plan

Lebanon’s Druze leader Walid Jumblat on Friday criticized U.S. President Joe Biden’s aid plans for the embattled Gaza Strip.

“President Biden. Nothing will prevent the starvation and the death of the people of Gaza if you are delaying the immediate ceasefire,” Jumblat said in an English-language post on the X platform.

“It is useless to improvise fictitious harbors or drop meager food rations amidst the continuous bombardment of Gaza,” Jumblat added.

Biden ordered the U.S. military Thursday to set up a temporary port off the coast of Gaza, joining international partners in trying to carve out a sea route to deliver food and other aid to desperate Palestinian civilians cut off by the Hamas-Israel war and by Israeli restrictions on humanitarian access by land.

The U.S. says it airdropped 36,000 meals into northern Gaza on Tuesday in coordination with Jordan, the second such joint mission in recent days. It came a day after the World Health Organization said children were dying of starvation in northern Gaza, where an estimated 300,000 Palestinians are living with little food or clean water.

But the strategy has sparked considerable discussion, with humanitarian organizations saying it cannot meet the soaring needs.

It has also become a symbol of the failure of the aid effort on the ground.

Source: Naharnet


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