A pier built by U.S. forces to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip has been removed for weather protection, and the United States is considering not reinstalling it until aid starts flowing to residents again, a U.S. official said on Friday.
The army is helping to move badly needed food through the pier, but most of it remains in an adjacent storage facility that is nearly full. Humanitarian convoys have come under attack, leaving aid agencies struggling to get food deeper into the Strip to areas most in need.
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The United Nations, the most far-reaching source of aid to starving Palestinians, has not distributed food and other emergency supplies arriving through the pier since June 9. The suspension came after Israeli forces used an area near the pier to evacuate hostages rescued in an attack that killed more than 270 Palestinians, sparking a U.N. security investigation over concerns that the safety and neutrality of aid workers may have been compromised.
A U.S. Army soldier gestures as trucks loaded with humanitarian aid arrive at the U.S.-built Trident floating platform and land on a beach off the coast of the Gaza Strip, Tuesday, June 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Steve Talavera, a spokesman for the U.N. World Food Program, said Friday that the U.N.’s participation in the pier construction project remains suspended until security concerns are resolved.
President Joe Biden’s $230 million project, always intended to be temporary and never touted as a complete solution to the problem of transporting humanitarian aid to Gaza, has faced a series of setbacks since aid first arrived on May 17 and has been criticized by relief groups and Republican lawmakers as a costly sabotage exercise.
The pier has been used to deliver more than 19.4 million pounds (8.6 million kilograms) of food to the Gaza Strip, but has been hampered by disruptions to aid as well as unpredictable weather. Just days after its initial operation, heavy seas damaged the pier, forcing the military to temporarily remove it for repairs and then reinstall it. Heavy seas on Friday forced the military to remove the pier again and transport it to the Israeli port of Ashdod.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss military actions, said the military could be able to reinstall the pier if the weather subsides in the next few days, but that no final decision had been made on whether to do so.
Defence Ministry spokeswoman Sabrina Singh acknowledged she didn’t know when the pier would be reinstalled. “If the commander determines it is the appropriate time to reinstall the pier, we will continue to keep you updated on that,” Singh said.
She also said Friday that more aid supplies needed to be brought to Cyprus and transported to the pier. She noted that the safe zone on land was “almost full” but that all means would be used to get aid to Gaza. She said the US was in talks with aid agencies about distributing food.
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But, she added, “Of course, if there isn’t enough space in the yard, it makes no sense to have soldiers there with nothing to do.”
Palestinians face widespread hunger as the nearly nine-month-old war between Israel and Hamas, Israeli restrictions on border crossings that are far more efficient than the sea route, and attacks on aid convoys have severely restricted the flow of food, medicine and other supplies.
