Pentagon shuts down Gaza floating pier after storm damage

The pier was the centrepiece of the Biden administration’s efforts to increase humanitarian aid to the beleaguered Gaza Strip but there are now doubts that it will ever be operational.

A US military vessel supporting a temporary pier runs aground. Picture: AFP.

The US military said it has suspended use of its temporary pier off the coast of Gaza because it was damaged during severe storms, the latest setback in the US effort to deliver humanitarian aid by sea to the embattled enclave.

It will take at least a week for the US to repair the pier after part of its causeway broke off the Gazan shore, the Pentagon said Tuesday. The US military said it would move the pier from the Gaza coast to the Israeli port of Ashdod to conduct those repairs.

The $320 million effort – involving 1,000 US military personnel – was operational for less than two weeks before Tuesday’s shutdown.

U.S. Defense Officials revealed today that after a Severe Storm this Weekend off the Coast of the Gaza Strip; a Large Section of the U.S. Army’s Temporary-Floating Pier has “Broken Away” and Drifted down the Coast, with other Sections of the Pier having Partially Sunk in Shallow… pic.twitter.com/lFlLec3NY5

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) May 28, 2024

The Pentagon vowed that the pier would be operational again, but there was scepticism among defence officials, who have privately warned that the pier couldn’t hold together in such choppy waters. The pier was a temporary measure that was supposed to be operational until the fall.

Weather conditions in the Mediterranean Sea have hampered the US efforts to open a maritime route for aid from the beginning, initially delaying the installation of the pier.

On Saturday, one week after the US began transporting aid using the pier, four boats stabilising it broke off because of rough waters, leaving the pier damaged but operational, said US Central Command, which is responsible for operations in the Middle East. After that, a storm swept through the region breaking the pier off the coast.

“Unfortunately, we had a perfect storm of high sea states, and then, as I mentioned, this North African weather system also came in at the same time, creating not an optimal environment to operate,” Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon deputy press secretary, told reporters Tuesday.

The floating dock was the centrepiece of the Biden administration’s efforts to increase humanitarian aid to the beleaguered Gaza Strip, where food and medical services are scarce amid a nearly eight-month-long war between Israel and Hamas, the US-designated terror organisation that controls the enclave. The effort is in the spotlight as President Biden faces domestic criticism about his handling of the war, especially from Democratic voters, ahead of November’s presidential election.

The president announced the pier during his March State of the Union address. Biden said no US troops would enter Gaza in support of the pier, but three American service members were injured amid the storm damage, one seriously.

The US has said that land crossings are the most effective way to transfer aid into Gaza and has pressed Israel to increase the flow of aid across the strip, where a large portion of civilians are facing severe hunger.

The US had hoped to deliver roughly 150 truck loads worth of food a day through the pier, but operations were hampered by a series of setbacks.

In the first week of operations, only 820 tons of aid was delivered through the pier, roughly 71 truck loads worth of food. Gaza’s more than two million residents require hundreds of truck loads a day. In all, roughly 1,000 metric tons of aid travelled over the pier, the Pentagon has said.

With pier operations suspended, thousands of tons of aid are left sitting in Cyprus, where Israeli officials inspected shipments bound for Gaza.

The US has recovered one of the four stabilising boats that broke off Saturday, the Pentagon said.

The Wall Street Journal