US military ends Gaza floating pier mission

According to Reuters, the US military announced on Wednesday that its mission to install and operate a temporary, floating pier off the coast of Gaza was complete, formally ending an extraordinary but troubled effort to bring humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

The pier, announced by President Joe Biden during a televised address to Congress in March, was a massive endeavor that took about 1,000 US forces to execute. Aid began flowing via the pier to Gaza in May, an operation aimed at helping avert famine after months of war between Israel and Hamas.

But bad weather and distribution challenges inside Gaza limited the effectiveness of what the US military says was its biggest aid delivery effort ever in the Middle East. The pier was only operational for about 20 days.

"The maritime surge mission involving the pier is complete. So there's no more need to use the pier," Navy Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, the deputy commander of US Central Command, told a news briefing.

Cooper said efforts to distribute aid to Gaza arriving by sea would now shift to the established port of Ashdod in Israel. At least 5 million pounds of aid, which are either in Cyprus or on ships, will be going to Ashdod in the coming days, he said.

"Our assessment is that the temporary pier has achieved its intended effect to surge a very high volume of aid into Gaza and ensure that aid reaches the civilians in Gaza in a quick manner," Cooper said, adding that nearly 20 million pounds of aid was delivered to Gaza.

The pier became a sore point in Congress, where Republicans branded it a political stunt by Biden, who was under pressure from fellow Democrats to do more to aid Palestinians after months of staunchly supporting Israel's punishing war on Hamas.

"This chapter might be over in President Biden’s mind, but the national embarrassment that this project has caused is not. The only miracle is that this doomed-from-the-start operation did not cost any American lives," Senator Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said.

Cooper said he expected the pier, which was authorized to be used until the end of July, to cost less than the US$230 million the Pentagon had expected it to cost.

Cooper said the United States had so far delivered more than one million pounds of aid through Ashdod and he was confident more could be delivered through that port.

"We look forward to millions more pounds of aid going through that pathway," he said.

While the pier brought in sorely needed aid to a marshalling area on Gaza's shore, the 1,200-foot-long (370-metre-long) floating pier had to be removed multiple times because of bad weather.

The pier has not been used since June, when it was moved to Ashdod port because of rough seas. It was unclear if the US military had started dismantling the pier at Ashdod before its expected return to United States.

The UN World Food Program paused operations at the pier in June because of security concerns, causing aid to pile up on the Gaza shore.

The United Nations has long said maritime deliveries were no substitute for land access. It said land routes needed to remain the focus of aid operations in the enclave, where a global hunger monitor last month said there is a high risk of famine.

Aid officials say about 600 trucks of humanitarian and commercial supplies are needed in Gaza daily to meet the needs of the population.

 

 

 

 

 

Millions of US military emails sent to Mali

Millions of US military emails have been mistakenly sent to Mali, a Russian ally, because of a minor typing error. Emails intended for the US military's ".mil" domain have, for years, been sent to the West African country which ends with the ".ml" suffix.

Some of the emails reportedly contained sensitive information such as passwords, medical records and the itineraries of top officers.

According to the Financial Times, which first reported the story, Dutch internet entrepreneur Johannes Zuurbier identified the problem more than 10 years ago.

Since 2013, he has had a contract to manage Mali's country domain and, in recent months, has reportedly collected tens of thousands of misdirected emails.

None were marked as classified, but, according to the newspaper, they included medical data, maps of US military facilities, financial records and the planning documents for official trips as well as some diplomatic messages.

Zuurbier wrote a letter to US officials this month to raise the alarm. He said that his contract with the Mali government was due to finish soon, meaning "the risk is real and could be exploited by adversaries of the US".

Mali's military government was due to take control of the domain on Monday.

US military communications that are marked "classified" and "top secret" are transmitted through separate IT systems that make it unlikely they will be accidently compromised, according to current and former US officials.

But Steven Stransky, a lawyer who previously served as senior counsel to the Department of Homeland Security's Intelligence Law Division, said that even seemingly harmless information could prove useful to US adversaries, particularly if it included details of individual personnel.

"Those sorts of communications would mean that a foreign actor can start building dossiers on our own military personnel, for espionage purposes, or could try to get them to disclose information in exchange for financial benefit," Stransky said. "It's certainly information that a foreign government can use."

Lee McKnight, a professor of information studies at Syracuse University, said he believed the US military was fortunate that the issue was brought to its attention and the emails were going to a domain used by Mali's government, rather than to cyber criminals.

He added that "typo-squatting" -- a type of cyber-crime that targets users who incorrectly misspell an internet domain -- is common. "They're hoping that a person will make a mistake, and that they can lure you in and do stupid things," he said.

When contacted by the BBC, a spokesperson said the defence department was aware of the issue and it was being taken seriously.

They said the department had taken steps to ensure that ".mil" emails are not sent to incorrect domains, including blocking them before they leave and notifying senders that they must validate intended recipients.

Both McKnight and Stransky said human errors were prime concerns for IT specialists working in government and the private sector alike.

"Human error is by far the most significant security concern on a day-to-day basis," Stransky said. "We just can't control every single human, every single time".