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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Julian Borger in Washington

‘Smokescreen’: officials voice concern over US plans for Gaza aid pier

Crowds of people including children push against a metal fence and hold out bowls and pans for food
Palestinians queuing for food in Rafah in February. A UN official said the plan had begun to look like a ‘smokescreen to enable the Israelis to invade Rafah’. Photograph: Fatima Shbair/AP

A giant floating pier is due to be completed in the next two weeks in the eastern Mediterranean from where it will be pushed towards the Gaza shore, but there is growing uncertainty over how useful the US project will be in containing a famine.

There are concerns in the humanitarian community that Israel has co-opted the pier plan, which Joe Biden touted as a way to bring about a “massive” increase in aid to Gaza, with one aid official saying the project was in danger of becoming a “smokescreen” for the planned invasion of Rafah.

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