Others responding to Biden’s proposal, which includes the building of a temporary pier and port in Gaza and aid deliveries from Cyprus, saw in the plan more evidence of the president’s reluctance to confront Israel over its obstruction of relief deliveries and a continued refusal to use the United States’ extraordinary leverage, as Israel’s main military backer, to alter the catastrophic course of the war.
Sigrid Kaag, the United Nations senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, said she welcomed the plan. “At the same time I cannot but repeat, air and sea is not a substitute for land,” she added, referring to aid delivered to the enclave by trucks through border crossings.
British Foreign Minister David Cameron, whose government is participating in the U.S. maritime delivery plan, echoed the sentiment. “We continue to urge Israel to allow more trucks into Gaza as the fastest way to get aid to those who need it,” he said in a post Friday on X.
The backdrop to the U.S. maritime plan is a hunger crisis spreading across Gaza that aid officials say is man-made, the result of limited entry points for supplies, an onerous Israeli inspection process and Israeli attacks on aid convoys and police guarding them. Israel has denied limiting aid to Gaza.
“A temporary pier that could take weeks to construct or airdrops are not a solution,” the International Rescue Committee said in a statement. “The US must use its influence to ensure that Israel lifts its siege of Gaza, reopens its crossings, including the Karni and Erez crossings in the north, and allows the safe and unimpeded movement of humanitarian workers and aid — including fuel, food, and medical supplies.”
Lior Haiat, a spokesman for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Israel “welcomes the inauguration of the maritime corridor from Cyprus to the Gaza Strip.”
“The Cypriot initiative will allow the increase of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, after security checks are carried out in accordance with Israeli standards,” he wrote Friday in a message on X.
Biden’s speech Thursday included a rare acknowledgment by the president of the scale of Palestinian suffering in Gaza during Israel’s military offensive, including the massive death toll. “This war has taken a greater toll on innocent civilians than all previous wars in Gaza combined. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of whom are not Hamas,” Biden said, citing a tally by the Health Ministry in Gaza, whose figures he previously derided as suspect.
But in his address, Biden “speaks as if what is happening in Gaza is far from American weapons,” said Wissam Thabet, 40, who was displaced to the central Gazan town of Deir al-Balah.
“Our problem is not aid,” he said. “Yes, there is a crisis in Gaza, but the solution to the crisis cannot be achieved through increasing aid. We need a cease-fire. We need to end the suffering completely,” he said.
“We need to live normally like other people in the whole world,” Thabet added. “Establishing a port in Gaza will not change the reality.”
Bader Al-Saif, a professor of history at Kuwait University who listened to Biden’s speech, said that while some of his comments — including on increasing humanitarian deliveries — were welcome, “the tone needs to change.”
“It shouldn’t be an ask,” of Israel, he said. “It should be a command.” The United States, with its weapons deliveries to Israel, was “financing the war.”
The sympathy Biden did show for Palestinians in the speech appeared to be “tactical,” aimed at a placating a domestic constituency he was losing, he said. Democrats in pivotal states who were voting “uncommitted” to protest U.S. support for Israel.
The plan for a maritime corridor — to bypass other, easier aid delivery routes — was part of a “baffling” policy response by the Biden administration that was being noted around the Middle East, Al-Saif said. “It sends a very bad signal on U.S. leadership. It reinforces what many Arabs think — that Israel is running the show, and the U.S. follows.”
The plan was “laughable,” he added. “How long is it going to take to build a port? The aid was needed yesterday.”
correction
A previous version of this article misidentified a resident of Gaza reacting to the State of the Union address. The resident’s name is Wissam Thabet. The article has been corrected.
