US military pier to begin operations off Gaza as soon as this weekend
The U.S. military-built pier off the coast of Gaza will be up and running as early as this weekend barring weather delays, and aid is expected to begin flowing into the enclave soon afterward, according to a U.S. official and a European official.
Officials are expected to make a decision on allowing the project to begin operations by Friday, meaning aid could begin flowing to Palestinians as soon as early next week, the U.S. official said. However, that timeline could be delayed by environmental factors such as weather or logistical issues, the official cautioned.
Both officials were granted anonymity to discuss dates before they are announced.
President Joe Biden announced the plan to establish a temporary port in Gaza to flow additional aid into the enclave by sea during his State of the Union speech in March. The project was seen as a way for Biden to show his critics that he’s taking more steps to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, while also circumventing the Israeli government’s reluctance to open its land borders to additional aid trucks.
Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said Wednesday that the pier is more than 50 percent complete, but didn’t give a specific date for operations, saying it will be ready to deliver aid into Gaza by early May.
The establishment of the new aid route more directly involves the United States in the war between Israel and Hamas, as it puts American forces off the coast of Gaza to help deliver food, water, medicine and other assistance. The Biden administration has repeatedly said U.S. troops would not step foot inside Gaza, but would instead remain just offshore to ensure the pier can remain safe and continue to function.
The project is a complex one. U.S. military personnel are building the pier a few miles offshore along with a floating causeway that will be anchored to the beach. Commercial ships will first deliver aid to the pier, where the food and supplies will be loaded onto smaller boats operated by the U.S. military, and transported to the causeway. Once there, aid workers from the United Nations will offload, organize and distribute the shipments.
The Israel Defense Forces are providing security for the project. The mission is a dangerous one, as U.S. personnel could come under fire from Hamas or other militants, or sustain accidental damage from Israeli airstrikes. Just last week, Gaza-based militants launched mortar rounds at the marshalling area on shore where U.N. workers plan to organize and distribute the aid.
During testimony on Capitol Hill Tuesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged that it’s “possible” U.S. troops working on the pier could get shot at. However, he stressed in an exchange with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) that the U.S. will not put “boots on the ground in Gaza.”
The Defense Department expects to begin delivering about 90 trucks’ worth of aid a day through the maritime route once the pier reaches initial operating capability, a senior DOD official told reporters last week. The flow of aid will “quickly scale up” to 150 trucks a day at full operating capability.
For comparison, over the past two weeks the daily average of trucks delivering humanitarian assistance into Gaza was 220 trucks a day, the official said.
“This additional throughput from the sea represents a significant increase of life-saving aid,” the official said.
Roughly 1,000 U.S. soldiers and sailors are supporting the effort to build the temporary pier, using a system called Joint Logistics Over-The-Shore, the official said. The effort also has “significant partner nation support,” the official added, without naming the partner.
The humanitarian assistance will first arrive in Cyprus via air or sea, where it’s screened, organized and prepared for delivery, the official said. The pallets are then loaded onto commercial vessels that travel about 200 miles to the floating pier, which provides a “stable workspace” to transport the pallets from the larger commercial vessels to smaller Army boats that can reach closer to shore.
Those smaller vessels, which can hold five to 15 trucks each, then shuttle the assistance from the floating causeway, which is several hundred meters long and anchored into the sand. Trucks then drive off the small boats down the causeway onto the shore to drop off the aid.
The IDF will provide a brigade of thousands of soldiers, plus Israeli Navy ships and Israeli Air Force assets that are “dedicated to force protection of this operation specifically,” the official said.
