'Staggering': Hijacking, mobs and combat threaten Gaza humanitarian aid from new US pier

Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY
·2 min read

WASHINGTON — Hijacking, mobs, and combat are creating a significant stumbling block to humanitarian aid delivered to Gaza, forcing officials to develop alternative routes for trucks arriving by the Pentagon's newly-built pier, U.S. officials said Thursday.

The Biden administration has trumpeted the effort of 1,000 U.S. troops to build a $320 million floating pier and causeway as pivotal to delivering food and medicine to Palestinians caught in the war between Israel and Hamas. Instead, the two-month effort has gotten off to a slow start in what officials termed a "staggering" need. Deliveries were suspended for a time after trucks in the first convoys were hijacked.

Daniel Dieckhaus, director for USAID’s Levant Response Management Team, described the effort to deliver aid as "incredibly complicated" because of active fighting and desperate needs in Gaza.

"The risks are manifold," Dieckhaus said.

Related: Pregnant women in Gaza Strip face starvation, no anesthesia after 6 months of war

The new routes have allowed 53 of 54 trucks to reach their destination in the last two days, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the deputy commander of Central Command, told reporters Thursday. Cooper stressed that the sea lift is meant to bolster aid shipments by land, a more efficient means of distributing them.

More than 1 million pounds of aid brought in by sea has been distributed, Cooper said.

Three U.S. troops have been hurt while at sea

Three U.S. troops have been hurt in the operation while at sea, one of them has been hospitalized, Cooper said. The injuries were not related to combat, he said.

More: World Food Program director Cindy McCain: parts of Gaza in 'full-blown famine'

Outside the fortified area around the pier in its first days of operation, Palestinians had mobbed the trucks before they could reach warehouses that distribute aid. Cooper maintained that no U.S. troops will be on the ground in Gaza.

The U.N.'s World Food Program, which helps distribute aid in Gaza, announced Wednesday that humanitarian operations in Gaza were near collapse. Little food or fuel is reaching people in Gaza through land routes as there's limited access through border crossings.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mobs, combat threaten Gaza humanitarian aid from new U.S. pier