Introductory note: This post was prepared for a presentation to the Navy’s Strategy Discussion Group, 21 November 2023. The SDG bears no responsibility for its content.
The United States should deploy the hospital ship USNS Mercy to a station offshore Port Gaza. It should establish a “Mercy Corridor” onshore at or near the port. The ship would be a powerful symbol in a conflict where symbols are powerful.
At 900 feet and 65,000 tons, with a huge red cross on its side and the U.S. flag above, Mercy will tell Gazans—and the world—that the U.S. cares deeply about the fate of Gaza’s civilian population even while it fully supports Israel in its war to eliminate Hamas. The Corridor would be a two-way street. Going out through it would be sick and wounded Gazan civilians to get medical treatment on the ship. In the opposite direction would come aid, in volume by sea, starting first with people and materials needed to restore Gaza’s health care system starting in northern Gaza.
Setting up the Corridor should be doable. The IDF, having encircled Gaza City, is in control of adjacent Port Gaza and, through its Navy, the port and its approaches. Israel should allow UNRWA to set up a processing center there, where, under Israeli eyes, patients, on the one hand, and aid and diplomats on the other, could reach their respective destinations at sea and on land.
Diplomats, mainly from anti-Hamas Arab states, will use the Corridor to contact, face-to-face, people and groups in Gaza that their governments can support and help produce a stable regime for the territory after Hamas has been eliminated. Such a government, which will be seen as untainted by Israel’s influence in its founding, is very much in Israel’s interest to facilitate.
Israel may deeply distrust UNRWA, but it should allow a Corridor for three reasons. First, Israel recognizes that it cannot eliminate Hamas if it does not separate Hamas from Gaza’s population at large. Every wounded Gazan who dies while life-saving treatment is clearly in view just offshore, is a death manifestly at Israel’s hands. Every such death strengthens Hamas’s hold in the territory. Second, the operation of the Corridor would have no effect on the military battle against Hamas. Third, Israel must respond to international public pressure to provide relief for Gaza’s civilians coming from the U.S., every Western government, and from the Global South, especially Arab/Muslim states. Israel knows it is very much in its political interest to be seen as sharing this concern. It must allow relief actions by others which after all cost Israel nothing.
Security for Mercy and the corridor would be provided by Israel on the ground, by Sixth Fleet at sea, and by the humanitarian mission of Mercy itself. Hamas would find it almost impossible to shoot at the ship which is saving wounded Gazan and which itself has no military capability. (This possibility can never be ruled out.)
Mercy would be supported by U.S. Sixth Fleet logistics and helicopter-carrying amphibious ships. The U.S. would be a behind-the-scenes controller /organizer/supporter of what are military-style expeditionary operations, but it should seek to internationalize relief efforts as much as possible. European countries would almost certainly want to supply naval ships and material support. NATO would be the obvious vehicle for multilateral coordination.
Key Arab states, especially Egypt, should be given a prominent role in the Corridor. Passing through the Suez Canal, Mercy will underline the seriousness of U.S. concern to Egypt’s people and to its government which has been until recently reluctant to allow foreign ships supplying medical treatment for Gazans to have access to its ports. Egypt would be highly likely to support Mercy, as necessary.
Today the need for aid can hardly seem more urgent. Yet the need will only increase with time, as civilian casualties grow and malnutrition and disease spread in Gaza. Millions across the world would welcome a “Mercy Corridor.” What state could oppose it? It provides relief for Gazans from the horrific effects of this war and an avenue through which a post-Hamas government can be developed to play a critical role in the settlement that ends it.
The United States Government should announce Mercy’s deployment and plans to establish a “Mercy Corridor” without delay. Simultaneously it should announce plans to deploy USNS Comfort as a relief for Mercy, perhaps operating two ships simultaneously for as long as is necessary.
Clio's Musings 