A $230 million temporary pier hastily built by U.S. forces to speed humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip has largely failed in its mission, aid groups say, and will likely end its operations weeks earlier than originally planned.
Although the pier has been connected to the shoreline for a month now, it has only been in use for around 10 days – the rest of the time it was either undergoing repairs after being damaged in heavy seas, detached to avoid further damage, or out of service due to safety concerns.
The pier was never meant to be more than a stopgap measure until the Biden administration could press Israel to get more aid to Gaza by land, a much more efficient means of transporting it. But some U.S. military officials say the pier likely won't achieve even its modest goals.
At the time the pier was planned, health officials warned that the area was on the brink of famine, and in recent weeks Israel has allowed aid groups access, but they say the situation remains serious.
The Biden administration had initially expected high waves would make the pier unusable until September, but military officials are now warning aid groups that the project could be removed as soon as next month, with officials hoping the looming deadline would pressure Israel to open more land routes.
President Biden ordered U.S. troops to begin construction of the pier in March, but was heavily criticized at the time for not doing enough to curb the Israeli military response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack.
The first truckloads of aid began arriving on land on May 17. Since then, aid projects have struggled, with many Gaza residents suffering from extreme hunger, aid groups say.
In the latest blow to the relief effort, the U.S. military said on Friday it would temporarily move the pier to prevent damage from public waves.
The decision “was not taken lightly, but is necessary to ensure the temporary pier can continue to deliver aid in the future,” it said. U.S. Central Command He said in a social media post that the jetty would be towed to Israel. Defense Ministry spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Monday that the jetty had been reconnected and aid deliveries could resume later this week.
“The pier is not working, at least for the Palestinians,” Steven Semler, co-founder of the Institute for Security Policy Reform, wrote in an essay for the Quincy Institute publication Strategy for Responsible Statehood. Semler argued that the pier has only succeeded in providing a “humanitarian cover” for the Biden administration's policies supporting Israel's bombing of Gaza.
U.S. officials say the dock will not only allow aid to be delivered with many land routes closed, but also highlight the urgent need to provide more humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip as a whole. But the challenges of the project have frustrated and frustrated Biden administration officials.
Despite the weather delays and other problems, there is one silver lining: The pier has not yet come under attack.
Earlier this month, the Pentagon denied claims on social media that the pier had been used in an Israeli raid that freed four hostages but killed scores of Palestinians.
Hours after the rescue, a video circulated online showing an Israeli helicopter taking off from the coast with a US military pier in the background.
After the video was released, US Central Command said in a statement that “the pier facility, including its equipment, personnel and assets, was not used in today's hostage rescue operation in Gaza.”
U.S. military officials were particularly concerned about a possible attack after reports emerged that the United States had provided information about the hostages ahead of the rescue operation.
Last week, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder decried “inaccurate claims on social media” that the pier was part of the rescue effort, but said there was “some helicopter activity” near the pier during the operation.
“The image of a helicopter taking off from the beach is counter to the overall use of humanitarian space,” said Arlan Fuller, emergency response manager for Project Hope. He added that the images “confuse the situation” and could put humanitarian workers on the pier at greater risk.
In addition, at the time of the hostage rescue operation, Central Command had just announced that the pier, which had been closed for about two weeks for repairs, was back in operation, and the World Food Programme announced a day later that it had again suspended aid distribution from the pier due to safety concerns.
Biden surprised the Pentagon by suddenly announcing the pier during his State of the Union address. Army engineers spent two months building and installing the pier, and about 1,000 U.S. troops are now part of the project.
When Biden announced the project, officials estimated it would help deliver as many as 2 million meals a day to Gaza residents. The Pentagon is calling it “Joint Logistics Over the Shore,” or JLOTS, and has previously used the capacity to provide humanitarian assistance in Somalia, Kuwait and Haiti.
Officials said that on days when the pier was operational, it could deliver thousands of tonnes of aid to the Gaza Strip.
Navy Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, deputy commander of the U.S. Navy's Central Command, recently said the pier problems “grew out of completely unforeseen weather.”
Spring and early summer are usually calm on Gaza's coast. “You plan for X, and nature brings you 2X,” says retired Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, who was there in 1993 when U.S. troops set up a jetty in Somalia to deliver humanitarian aid to civilians caught in the war.
Several Republican lawmakers have criticized the project's cost and potential risks to U.S. troops.
“This irresponsible and costly test defies all logic other than the obvious political explanation of appeasing the president's far-left wing,” Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said earlier this month.
Aid workers say lengthy inspections of trucks, restrictions on opening hours and Israeli protests have backed up traffic at border crossings, delaying deliveries of food and other supplies.
Israel insists there are no limits on the amount of aid it accepts, and it routinely blames disorganized aid agencies and theft by Hamas for its inability to efficiently deliver food to Palestinians.
Central Command said Friday that 3,500 tonnes of aid have been brought ashore using the jetty since operations began on May 17, of which about 2,500 tonnes have been brought ashore since the jetty was re-anchored and operations resumed on June 8.
But aid groups say much of the aid that does pass through never reaches the Palestinians because of logistical and security challenges and looting.
Aid workers say just seven truckloads of supplies are arriving through Gaza's docks every day, far from an eventual goal of 150 trucks a day.
“The amounts are negligible,” said J. Steven Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “and the seas are going to get choppier.”