Some of President Joe Biden’s biggest supporters in the media criticized his new plan to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza on Wednesday.
The Biden administration plans to deploy naval vessels to the Mediterranean Sea to build an offshore pier that can be floated over to Gaza and receive aid shipments via a maritime corridor. Pod Save the World, a traditionally left-leaning podcast that often advocates for Biden, warned on Wednesday it could turn into another “Abbey Gate” — referring to the botched U.S. Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021 that ended in the deaths of 13 U.S. troops — because Hamas operatives on the shores of Gaza might disrupt the aid operation. (RELATED: ‘Terrible Idea’: Biden’s Gaza Aid Scheme Puts Troops At Risk To Appease Voters, Experts Say)
“There was a report over the weekend… about concerns that [this] temporary floating pier will be just a big, fat terrorist target from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, from Hamas — which, first of all, of course it will,” Pod Save the World host Tommy Vietor said during an episode on Wednesday. “This thing could be like a floating Abbey Gate, like we saw at the end of the Afghanistan withdrawal, sitting out in the ocean, that will have to be heavily defended by U.S. forces.”
WATCH:
Abbey Gate is one of the main entrances at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan — the U.S. extraction point during the withdrawal in 2021 — where thousands of Afghani and foreign civilians crowded in a bid to evacuate alongside American forces. Terrorists launched an attack on Abbey Gate during the withdrawal, killing 13 American troops and roughly 170 Afghanis, according to the Department of Defense.
“It didn’t even occur to me that people on the ground facilitating the transfer of this aid could be targeted by the [Israel Defense Forces (IDF)]. But that’s exactly what happened on Monday,” Vietor continued.
Vietor is referring to an Israeli airstrike on Monday that mistakenly targeted a World Central Kitchen aid convoy in Gaza and killed seven workers. The IDF said on Tuesday that it had misidentified the convoy during military operations and is opening a further investigation into the matter.
“Floating piers and World Central Kitchen … there are other ways to get aid in,” Pod Save the World co-host Ben Rhodes said on Wednesday.
Biden’s plan to build a floating pier for aid to delivery to Gaza has been criticized by defense experts as it could put U.S. forces on naval vessels facilitating the operation in the crosshairs of Hamas operatives on land. The Pentagon admitted in March there is “certainly a risk” that Hamas will attempt to fire upon U.S. naval forces.
“What happens when the aid convoys come off the pier and go into Gaza, again, we don’t want to see any humanitarian aid worker or the distribution of aid targeted,” Sabrina Singh, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary, told reporters during a press briefing on Tuesday.
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