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USA again paralyzes Gaza pier and suspends aid deliveries

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The Pentagon will again decommission its floating pier off the coast of Gaza, which is used intermittently to bring humanitarian aid to starving Palestinians, while U.S. military personnel try to relocate the facility and protect it from another wave of rough seas, two officials familiar with the matter said Friday.

Commanders of the operation, which has so far suffered numerous other setbacks, intend to move the pier to the Israeli port of Ashdod shortly, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military plans. The upcoming order represents a more cautious approach to dealing with the adverse conditions that have plagued the mission from the start.

It has been less than a week since U.S. troops resumed delivering aid across the pier after it was torn apart by strong waves on May 25. Damage was estimated at $22 million and the operation had to be halted for several days while personnel repaired and reassembled the pier.

Hundreds of tons of food and other urgently needed supplies have been brought ashore in recent days but have not made their way inland, officials said. Although Gaza’s civilians, trapped by fighting between Israel’s military and Hamas militias, are in dire straits, the World Food Programme, which is responsible for distributing the aid, suspended its work this week after dozens of Palestinians were killed in an Israeli hostage rescue operation on June 8.

The pier is located in the sea and has a long steel causeway used to bring trucks ashore. US forces, with the help of their Israeli counterparts, had reattached the structure to the shore a day before the bloodshed.

Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said this week that the aid was being held in a staging area on land for now.

CNN reported Thursday that the Pentagon was considering temporarily dismantling the pier.

The pier’s deployment is part of a broader effort by the Biden administration to get food and other essentials to starving Gazans as Israel continues its war against Hamas. But if waves exceed two to three feet in height, deploying the pier is difficult, according to previous assessments in military journals. Regional forecasts show waves could reach three feet on Sunday and possibly four feet on Monday.

Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, a senior U.S. military official who oversees the project, declined to comment last week on how the military would respond if the waves got bigger again, saying only that a “set of plans” were in place just in case.

“Until then, our goal is to maximize humanitarian assistance through the pier,” he said.

Security analysts have also raised concerns that the pier could be vulnerable to attacks by Hamas or other militant groups. Senior Pentagon officials have said both U.S. and Israeli officials have taken precautions to protect the structure.

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