President Joe Biden‘s administration has played a supporting role in the nearly 6-month-old Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, providing military support for the Jewish state while also talking up the need to safeguard Palestinian civilians. As CIA Director William Burns has tried to negotiate the release of Israeli hostages, some with dual U.S. citizenship, the Biden White House is taking a more active role in the conflict.

The president announced in his March 7 State of the Union address that he directed the U.S. military to build a port off Gaza’s coast along the Mediterranean Sea to provide a fresh way to get aid to the 25-mile strip, from which Hamas launched the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on southern Israel, claiming about 1,200 lives and taking hundreds hostage. The goal of the planned Gaza port, for which U.S. military planners have secured backing from allied countries, is to speed up food, medical, and other aid to Gaza residents. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry says 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory strikes. Israel contends a sizable minority of those who died were Hamas terrorists.