Israel considers use of private security contractors to protect Gaza aid ships: report
Israel is weighing the use of international private security contractors to help protect the humanitarian aid shipments arriving in Gaza, according to a report
Israeli officials have brought up the idea to the Biden administration. US officials are wary of having armed American troops or American security forces on the ground in the Palestinian enclave, officials familiar with the conversations told NBC News.
The Jewish State has allegedly already reached out to several security firms and brought up the idea of having other nations split the bill for the pricey contract work, the officials said.
The Israeli government declined to comment on the report.
The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The discussions come after the US green-lit a plan to use more than 1,000 US troops and civilian personnel to construct a floating dock and pier system that would allow more aid to be delivered easily Gaza beaches.
It took about three days for the first shipment of nearly 200 tons of food to be towed to Gaza after leaving Cyprus last week, delivering much needed humanitarian aid to the nearly 2 million Palestinian refugees.
The World Central Kitchen charity built a temporary jetty to allow the flat-bottomed barge to approach Gaza to compensate for the current lack of a port, the Times of Israel reported.
Such aid would be delivered much faster with the US floating pier system, which would ferry food and aid to the shore and deliver as much as 2 million meals a day to the refugees, according to the Pentagon.
Biden, who announced the plan during his State of the Union address, has said Israel would need to provide security for the project, but defense officials told NBC that the specifics are still in the works.
Both Biden and the Pentagon have insisted that “no US boots will be on the ground.”
The shipments are aimed at curbing the rise of starvation spreading among Gazans, with the embattled UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees finding that one in three children under two years old in the Gaza Strip are acutely malnourished.
