The U.S. is building a pier off Gaza to bring in humanitarian aid. Here’s how it would work
They keep missing the mark! 🤦🏼♀️
Related (Fogbow):
Over 1,000 U.S. military personnel will be involved in construction of the pier and 1,800 foot (550 m) long Joint Logistics Over-The-Shore (JLOTS) type modular causeway, over a 60 day period. The part of the JLOTS system to be deployed is a large floating modular unloading platform secured by sea anchors stationed about three miles offshore, allowing supplies to be then transferred by lighters to a modular causeway off the shore. The project, known internally as the Blue Beach Plan, was partially developed by an advisory group called Fogbow, co-founded by Michael Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense, and Sam Mundy, a retired Marine Lt. Gen. The plan includes potentially dredging a corridor on a private beachfront to aid unloading. The goal is to allow barges to approach the shore for aid distribution onto trucks. The military pier, once operational, could provide another way for aid delivery.
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The Fogbow plan is a strategy created by the American advisory group Fogbow, founded by Michael Mulroy and Sam Mundy and managed by former US military and intelligence personnel, to establish a maritime corridor. According to the initial Fogbow plan, a significant portion of aid will be transported using Masri trucks to the Gaza Industrial Zone, a specified area within the Gaza sector. Additionally, Fogbow aims to set up a new beach landing site for delivering humanitarian aid. This initiative seeks to improve aid distribution by increasing the number of drop zones along the coast, making it easier to transport aid to remote areas that are difficult to reach by typical overland routes. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have agreed to provide security assistance to Fogbow. To support the implementation of this plan, funding will be directed through a recently established foundation called the “Maritime Humanitarian Aid Foundation.”
Unlike Airdrops, Maritime Aid Corridors Can Actually Help Gaza
Additionally, a private American firm, Fogbow, has been developing a separate commercial maritime corridor. These shipments will reportedly originate in Cyprus, delivering the equivalent of 200 truckloads of aid per day to Gaza at a cost of $200 million for six months, including construction and operation—a supply rate that would more than double the current flow. This commercial option could be operational within a month of being funded, though to date there is no news of any government or international organization footing the bill.
Both the Fogbow and U.S. military options would unload in northern Gaza, bringing aid directly into the area that the World Health Organization considers most at risk of famine. This placement would also avoid the logistical and criminal hazards of ground transport from southern Gaza.
So far, neither operation has confirmed who will be responsible for onshore distribution, but this aspect will ultimately be handled by one agent or another, enabling more orderly distribution than airdrops. In addition, the shoreside distribution agents may ultimately be responsible for more than half of all aid entering Gaza, giving them substantial influence with Palestinians and the international community. As a private entity, Fogbow will have more latitude to choose its partner than the U.S. military. If selected judiciously, these partnerships could sow the economic seeds for a more accountable and responsible Palestinian leadership in the future.
Of course, distribution agents will be vulnerable and tempting targets for Hamas and other malign actors if shoreside security is inadequate. The Israel Defense Forces have pledged to provide security for the U.S. beachhead; this guarantee should be extended to the Fogbow beachhead as well. Israel should also devise plans to secure aid deliveries until they reach the intended Palestinian distributor. Ideally, however, security should be provided by an appropriate international force that has a less fraught relationship with the local population.
Private company setting up parallel aid operation
At the same time, a private company called Fogbow, an advisory firm run by former US military and intelligence officials, is in the process of setting up its own maritime aid operation that will run parallel to — but separate from — the US military-led process, according to several people familiar with the plan.
People familiar with Fogbow’s plan say the firm has identified a construction company owned by a Palestinian-American with hundreds of trucks and a vast storage facility near Israel’s border to move the aid. Some aid groups would prefer all the distribution to be handled by the UN, and have raised concerns about the idea of concentrating so much power and responsibility into the hands of one wealthy Palestinian entrepreneur, whom sources identified as Bashar al Masri.
Fogbow’s initial plan is for much of the aid to be moved by Masri’s trucks to a zone in Gaza called the Gaza Industrial Estate that was developed by a company Masri now chairs called the Palestine Development and Investment Company.
Masri declined a request for comment.
Gaza’s shoreline is only about 25 miles long, and it is still unclear how far apart the US military’s aid drop zone will be from Fogbow’s. People familiar with Fogbow’s operation said that the IDF had agreed to provide security for them as well, but that it would be easier if the two drop zones were closer to each other so that the security perimeter is not too large for the IDF to handle.
But that proximity also raises questions about the distribution networks, and whether they will conflict with or complement each other.
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Fogbow, for its part, will be funded through a new foundation headquartered in Geneva called the Maritime Humanitarian Aid Foundation, the people familiar with the operation said. The foundation’s executive director is Cameron Hume, a career diplomat and former US Ambassador to Algeria, South Africa, and Indonesia. Qatar has already pledged $60 million to their effort, the people and a Qatari official familiar with the matter said, which is about two months of operating costs.
Fogbow is willing to use the US military pier to get aid onto shore, the sources said, but also won’t need to use it in order to carry out its operations. Instead, the firm is planning to contract a maritime logistics company that will dredge near Gaza’s coastline in a way that allows a large barge, also contracted by Fogbow, to get close enough to shore to drop off aid.
One of the people familiar with the Fogbow plan said that they want to set up the additional beach landing site for aid because the more aid drop zones there are on the coast, the more aid can be flowed into places that may be harder to reach by the traditional land crossings. This person also said it ensures that there is still a way to flow aid into Gaza by sea even if the US military ever decides to withdraw its pier or stop operating it.
How the US military plans to construct a pier and get food into Gaza
What is Fogbow and what role will it play?
Fogbow is led by Sam Mundy, a former Marine Corps lieutenant general who previously commanded forces in the Middle East, and Mick Mulroy, a former CIA paramilitary officer and assistant secretary of defence for the Middle East.
The full details of what they will be doing has not been made public before. But a person familiar with the plan told the BBC that the Fogbow operation – known internally as Blue Beach Plan – is primarily to organise the movement of aid after it arrives on the Gaza shore.
The containers will be emptied and the contents put on trucks to be taken to distribution points further into Gaza, as part of a plan approved by the US and Israeli governments.
The BBC has been told that Fogbow is still looking for funding and has briefed a range of European and Middle East governments on the plans. In the longer term, Fogbow plans to set up a donor-run foundation to help funnel aid into Gaza.
Fogbow Team (Mick Mulroy)
Lobo Institute Experts (Mick Mulroy, Sam Mundy, Andrew Milburn, etc.)
Middle East Institute Experts (Charles Lister, Mick Mulroy, etc.)
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