Pentagon to shut down its troubled Gaza pier aid operation

The Pentagon is shutting down the troubled pier system in Gaza that was set up to facilitate the delivery of aid to starving Palestinians.

President Joe Biden announced the fixed pier and docking system in his State of the Union address in early March, to the surprise of some Pentagon officials. The $230 million project was the centerpiece of a makeshift effort to feed the population in Gaza, where Israel’s military assault has intermittently shut off crossings that are crucial for supplies of food, fuel and other aid.

But due to bad weather and rough seas, the system was dismantled multiple times after its launch in mid-May.

It was in operation for only 20 days and helped the U.S. deliver nearly 20 million pounds of aid to the coast of Gaza. Much of it, however, sat on the beach for weeks as heavy fighting between Israel and Hamas made it too dangerous for United Nations groups to deliver it.

The Pentagon acknowledged the project’s challenges but said it was far better than doing nothing.

“We are saving lives,” said Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

“I think it’s important to remember that, and what you saw with our forces is running towards the problem. We created a solution. We believe it was a success.”

Personnel from U.S. Central Command tried to reattach the temporary pier to the beach in Gaza on Wednesday but were unsuccessful due to bad weather and technical problems.

“As hundreds of thousands of people continue to face emergency levels of food insecurity across Gaza, the United States will continue to take all possible action to ensure increased aid flows are sustained at the scale needed to meet the needs on the ground,” Singh said.

At last night’s news conference at the NATO summit in Washington, Biden conceded that the project did not go as planned.

“I’ve been disappointed that some of the things that I’ve put forward have not succeeded as well, like the port reattached from Cyprus,” he said. “I was hopeful that would be more successful.”

The U.N. said this week that nearly half a million people in Gaza face catastrophic levels of hunger. Roughly 600 trucks of aid are needed every day to stave off the famine-like conditions, according to Doug Stropes, chief of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance.

“The current environment here is complex and more challenging than anything I’ve seen,” he said.