US suspends aid deliveries as Gaza pier falls apart | The Jewish Press – JewishPress.com | Hana Levi Julian | 21 Ijjar 5784 – Tuesday, May 28, 2024

Photo credit: COGAT

The United States has suspended the delivery of humanitarian aid through the maritime corridor from Cyprus after the temporary pier (JLOTS) built by the US Navy on the Gaza Strip coast collapsed amid strong winds and rough waves.

Last Saturday (May 25), four US Army ships supporting the maritime humanitarian assistance mission in Gaza ran aground off Israel’s Mediterranean coast due to heavy seas. The choppy waters caused the motorized pier sections used to stabilize the Trident Pier to become detached from their anchors due to a power outage and subsequently washed ashore on Israel’s shores.

“To date, one of the Army ships that was stranded on the coast of Israel near Ashkelon has been recovered. The second ship, also stranded near Ashkelon, will be recovered in the next 24 hours, and the other two ships that were stranded near Trident Pier are expected to be recovered in the next 48 hours,” Pentagon deputy spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters in a briefing on Tuesday.

“Efforts to salvage the ships are currently underway with the support of the Israeli Navy.”

Earlier on Tuesday, high seas and a North African weather system caused one of the pier sections to break away from the part of the pier currently anchored on the Gaza Strip coast.

The pier consists of two main components: a large floating pier made of steel segments and a two-lane, 548-meter-long causeway and pier. The causeway, which leads to the shore and connects to the floating pier, consists of a series of interconnected 12-meter-long steel sections that are connected to each other and secured to the shore.

“Parts of the pier need to be rebuilt and repaired,” Singh told reporters. “Therefore, over the next 48 hours, the Trident Pier will be removed from its anchorage on the coast and towed back to Ashdod, where the US Central Command (CENTCOM) will carry out repairs.”

Reconstruction and repair of the pier is expected to take more than a week and, once completed, it will have to be anchored again on Gaza’s coast, she said.

Singh claims the pier has proven “extremely valuable” in delivering aid to civilians in Gaza. She told reporters the pier will be rebuilt and anchored on the Gaza shore to resume the delivery of humanitarian aid through the maritime corridor.

How much aid arrived in Gaza via the pier?
On May 18, humanitarian aid was delivered to the Gaza Strip coast for the first time through the new pier. In the ten days since then (it was actually a week because of the pier failure), according to the Pentagon, more than 1,000 tons have been moved from the pier to the assembly point, from where humanitarian organizations have distributed it to the people of the Gaza Strip.

Each pallet of aid weighs about one tonne, according to the Cypriot Foreign Ministry. About 40 percent of the aid that reached the collection point subsequently reached its destination. The rest was intercepted and hijacked by terrorists and gang members led by Hamas.

However, the volume of relief supplies arriving via the pier is not yet significant.

To put things in perspective, on Monday (May 27) alone, more than 370 trucks carrying humanitarian aid reached Gaza, including 154 trucks that came from Egypt through the Kerem Shalom crossing. More than 70 trucks carrying flour from the World Food Programme (WFP) reached the enclave from the port of Ashdod.

A day earlier, 360 trucks carrying humanitarian aid for the Gaza population entered Gaza, including 124 aid trucks that entered through the Kerem Shalom crossing. In addition, 37 pallets of humanitarian aid were airdropped over Gaza and six tankers filled with fuel reached the area.

Last week, 1,981 trucks entered Gaza, including 242 trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Jordan.

“Israel has facilitated the entry of half a million tons of humanitarian aid into Gaza, including nearly 20,000 truckloads of food,” said COGAT (Israel’s liaison with the Palestinian Authority and the citizens of the Gaza Strip).

Eighty percent more food would be delivered to the enclave by land, sea and air than before the war broke out on October 7, 2023, Israeli government spokesman Tal Heinrich told reporters at a briefing on Tuesday.

Study: Gaza residents get enough to eat
Since the war began, a total of more than 30,500 trucks have delivered more than 591,000 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Israel has opened new border crossings, repaired the enclave’s water pipes and paved roads to make deliveries more efficient – while Hamas terrorists continue to bomb the border crossings, damage the water pipes and hijack the aid from the trucks to feed their terrorists and sell the rest at exorbitant prices in Gaza’s markets.

Nevertheless, according to a study by Israeli health and medical personnel who analyzed food shipments delivered by COGAT to the Gaza Strip by land between January and April 2024, a sufficient amount of food and other supplies reaches the enclave to meet the needs of the entire population.

The study, conducted from January to April 2024, estimated the total calorie, protein, fat and iron content of each shipment based on food composition by analyzing data collected by COGAT from 14,916 trucks weighing 227,853.8 tons of food.

“Additional food aid by air, sea and across the Egyptian border was not taken into account,” the report said. “As such, our results do not reflect the total food supply of the population, which may have more fruits and vegetables.”

On average, 3,729 food trucks reached the Gaza Strip each month (124 per day), meaning more food trucks reached the enclave every day than before the war.

“The amount of food delivered per capita is expected to be sufficient for the entire population of the Gaza Strip and is consistent with Sphere’s humanitarian recommendations for the delivery of food aid to the conflict-affected population during the period studied,” the researchers concluded.