The U.S.-built temporary pier facilitating humanitarian aid to starving Palestinians will be removed from Gaza coast for repairs after being damaged by rough seas and weather, the Pentagon announced on Tuesday.
Over the next two days, the pier will be transported to the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, where U.S. Central Command will undertake the necessary repairs, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh informed reporters. She mentioned that the repairs will take “at least over a week,” after which the pier will need to be re-anchored on Gaza’s beach.
The pier, used to deliver humanitarian aid arriving by sea, is one of the limited means of providing food, water, and other supplies to Palestinians, who the U.N. reports are on the verge of famine due to the nearly 8-month-long conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Pier operations face challenges with injuries, vessel damage, and delivery disruptions
This setback is the latest issue for the $320 million pier, which began operations only in the past two weeks and has already seen three U.S. service members injured and four vessels beached because of heavy seas. Deliveries were also halted for two days last week after crowds rushed aid trucks from the pier, resulting in one Palestinian man’s death. Subsequently, the U.S. military coordinated with the U.N. and Israeli officials to identify safer routes for trucks, the Pentagon said on Friday.
The pier was operational as recently as Saturday, when heavy seas unmoored four Army boats ferrying aid pallets from commercial vessels to the pier. The system, anchored into the beach, provided a causeway for trucks to transport aid onto the shore. Two vessels were beached on Gaza and two others on the Israeli coast near Ashkelon. Before the weather damage and subsequent suspension, the pier had been gaining momentum, and by Friday, over 820 metric tons of food aid had been delivered from the sea onto Gaza’s beach via the pier.
U.S. officials have repeatedly highlighted that the pier alone cannot supply the required aid for starving Gazans, emphasizing the need for more humanitarian truck checkpoints to be opened. At full capacity, the pier would provide enough food for 500,000 of Gaza’s people. U.S. officials underscored the necessity for open land crossings to aid the remaining 1.8 million. The U.S. also plans to continue airdrops of food, though these too cannot meet all the needs.
An intensifying Israeli offensive in Rafah has blocked aid shipments through that crossing, a key source of fuel and food for Gaza. Israel claims it is delivering aid through another border crossing, Kerem Shalom, but humanitarian organizations report that Israeli military operations hinder their ability to retrieve and distribute the aid.