A string of security, logistical and weather problems has battered the plan to deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid to Gaza through a U.S. military-built pier.
Broken apart by strong winds and heavy seas just over a week after it became operational, the project faces criticism that it hasn’t lived up to its initial billing or its $320 million US price tag.
High winds and heavy seas damaged the pier last week. They also caused four U.S. Army vessels operating there to become beached, injuring three service members, one who is in critical condition.
U.S. officials say, however, that the steel causeway connected to the beach in Gaza and the floating pier are being repaired and reassembled at a port in southern Israel.
In the coming days, the sections of the causeway will be put back together, and by the middle of next week will be moved back to the Gaza shore, where the causeway will once again be attached to the beach, the Pentagon says.
“When we are able to re-anchor the pier back in, you’ll be able to see that aid flow off in a pretty steady stream,” said U.S. Department of Defence spokesperson Sabrina Singh on Tuesday. “We’re going to continue to operate this temporary pier for as long as we can.”
On Thursday, a Cypriot official told Reuters that humanitarian aid for Gaza is continuing to leave by sea and will be held in floating storage off the coast of the enclave until the U.S. can rebuild the pier.
“The mechanism surrounding how the floating pier works allows for the possibility of floating storage off Gaza, with offloading to resume when conditions allow,” said spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis, blaming the problem on rough seas.
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Pier a ‘sideshow’: NGO official
Early Pentagon estimates had suggested the pier could deliver up to 150 truckloads of aid a day, but aid groups have had mixed reactions — both welcoming any amount of aid for starving Palestinians and decrying the structure as a distraction that took pressure off Israel to open more border crossings, which are far more productive.
It’s “a sideshow,” said Bob Kitchen, a top official of the International Rescue Committee, a non-governmental organization.
The Biden administration has said from the start that the pier wasn’t meant to be a total solution.
“Nobody said at the outset that it was going to be a panacea for all the humanitarian assistance problems that still exist in Gaza,” U.S. national security spokesperson John Kirby said Wednesday. “I think sometimes there’s an expectation of the U.S. military — because they’re so good — that everything that they touch is just going to turn to gold in an instant.”
“We knew going in that this was going to be tough stuff,” he went on. “And it has proven to be tough stuff.”
Before the war, Gaza was getting about 500 truckloads of aid on average every day. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) says it needs a steady flow of 600 trucks a day to ease the struggle for food and bring people back from the brink of famine. A further complication is the Israeli offensive in the southern city of Rafah, which has made it difficult to get aid into the region by land routes.
High seas, desperate Palestinians
President Joe Biden announced the pier plan during his State of the Union address on March 7. Days later, four U.S. Army boats loaded with tons of equipment and steel pier segments left Virginia on an expected monthlong voyage toward Gaza, though they would later hit high seas and rough weather as they crossed the Atlantic, slowing their pace.
U.S. officials confirmed in April that the UN World Food Program agreed to help deliver aid brought to Gaza via the maritime route once construction was done. That was notable, coming as it did several days after seven World Central Kitchen aid workers were killed in an Israeli airstrike as they travelled in clearly marked vehicles on a delivery mission authorized by Israel.
Major construction of the port facility picked up in late April, and on May 9, the U.S. vessel Sagamore left Cyprus for the pier. An elaborate security and inspection station has been built in Cyprus to screen the aid coming from a number of countries.
An unintended consequence of delivery was seen on May 18, when crowds of desperate Palestinians overran a convoy of aid trucks coming from the pier, stripping the cargo from 11 of the 16 vehicles before they reached a UN warehouse for distribution.
Just before the pier damage was encountered, on May 24, the USAID said that 1,000 metric tonnes of aid had been distributed.