US wants to suspend operation on Gaza pier for the fourth time in a month

For the fourth time in less than a month, U.S. military officials are expected to suspend aid deliveries through their pier off the coast of Gaza as the U.S. continues to allow Israel’s near-total blockade of humanitarian aid and its hunger relief campaign.

US forces are expected to dismantle the pier on Friday and transport it back to Israel. CNN Reports, due to the forecast of heavy seas over the next few days. It is unclear how long the pier will be out of service and it is expected to be reconnected as soon as conditions allow.

This is the fourth time the pier has been shut down since it opened on May 17. Just two days after its completion, deliveries were halted after only 15 truckloads of aid arrived, citing logistical problems in getting the supplies to aid agencies’ warehouses. When deliveries resumed on May 21, the Pentagon admitted that none of the few supplies that had come through the pier up to that point had been distributed to Palestinians through aid agencies.

The U.S. was planning new aid routes when the military again halted deliveries a week after the pier was built because heavy seas dislodged and beached U.S. Army ships that authorities said were supporting the pier. In the days that followed, parts of the pier broke loose until it was completely demolished around May 29.

Last Friday, the pier was rebuilt and connected, and aid deliveries resumed on June 8. One day later, they were stopped again for two days due to high seas.

In total, the pier has been out of service longer than it has been in service. Since its construction, the pier has only been in service on 10 of the 28 days, including Fridays.

The ongoing failure of the pier – which cost $320 million to build and has already suffered tens of millions of dollars in damage – lends credence to the fierce criticism of the pier by Palestinians and humanitarian groups.

Before its construction, groups had pointed out that the pier was the least efficient way for aid to reach the region, as land deliveries were far more time- and cost-efficient. A permanent ceasefire and pressure on Israel to end its aid blockade were the best ways to get enough aid to Gaza. Palestinians and some aid groups have also raised alarm that the US military presence around the pier is a means of concealing the presence of US troops on the ground in Gaza.

Many critics said the pier, which U.S. officials announced in response to international outrage over Israel’s killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in April, was nothing more than a public relations stunt by a country complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Indeed, U.S. officials refuse to publicly acknowledge that Israel’s tightened, months-long aid blockade has plunged much of Gaza into man-made famine, while the Biden administration continues to provide strong military and diplomatic support for the genocide.

At the same time, however, US officials have publicly called for humanitarian aid to be sent to Gaza. At a conference in Jordan on the Gaza massacre on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged other participants to provide “more aid” to humanitarian efforts in Gaza and cynically spoke of a “deficit” in funding – without mentioning that this lack of funds is largely caused by the US not providing funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Yet politicians continue to pretend to be deeply concerned about the humanitarian crisis they are supporting.

The U.S. State Department announced Friday that it was imposing sanctions on an Israeli group it said had obstructed humanitarian aid convoys to Gaza. The department named the right-wing group Tzav 9 as the perpetrator of several attacks on aid convoys, including a May 13 attack in which Israeli settlers in the West Bank set fire to and looted two aid trucks bound for Gaza.

“The Israeli government has a responsibility to ensure the security of humanitarian convoys traveling through Israel and the West Bank on their way to Gaza,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement on the sanctions.

“We will not tolerate acts of sabotage and violence against this vital humanitarian aid. We will continue to use all the tools at our disposal to hold accountable those who attempt or commit such heinous acts, and we expect and call on the Israeli authorities to do the same,” Miller continued, seeming to suggest that the settlers, not the Israeli authorities, bear primary responsibility for the horror unfolding in Gaza.

The assumption that the sanctions will have a significant impact is further undermined by the fact that they are aimed at only one Israeli group, but several Israeli groups are reported to have worked together to sabotage the aid convoys.