US-Built Gaza Pier To Be Dismantled Early Amid Ongoing Failures

Following the latest weather and choppy seas setback, the US-built aid pier off Gaza has resumed operations as of the end of this week (Thursday), the Pentagon said, after it broke apart last month. It’s been an on-again off-again situation and the controversial and costly pier project has by and large proven ineffective.

But despite aid reportedly now rolling off the pier once again, Israeli media on Saturday has documented more embarrassing issues, including apparently broken off parts from the pier still washing up to shore far away from its location…

A small segment of the US-built humanitarian pier in #Gaza has washed ashore in central Tel-Aviv. https://t.co/aFSO2mhLbB

— The Intel Crab (@IntelCrab) June 22, 2024

Following significant repairs it underwent at an Israeli port, the pier was transferred back in place amid a series of problems largely due to turbulent seas in the eastern Mediterranean..

The Associated Press has written in a fresh report that “Aid groups have sharply criticized the plan to bring aid by sea into Gaza, saying it’s a distraction to take pressure off Israel to open more land border crossings that are far more productive.”

This week The New York Times essentially declared that the expensive Biden project is an utter failure and that it will be dismantled earlier than expected.

“The $230 million temporary pier that the U.S. military built on short notice to rush humanitarian aid to Gaza has largely failed in its mission, aid organizations say, and will probably end operations weeks earlier than originally expected,” the Times wrote.

“In the month since it was attached to the shoreline, the pier has been in service only about 10 days. The rest of the time, it was being repaired after rough seas broke it apart, detached to avoid further damage or paused because of security concerns,” the report continued.

Top US military officials have also acknowledged the failure of the project: “The pier was never meant to be more than a stopgap measure while the Biden administration pushed Israel to allow more food and other supplies into Gaza through land routes, a far more efficient way to deliver relief. But even the modest goals for the pier are likely to fall short, some American military officials say,” according to NYT.

This project was never fundamentally about hungry Palestinians, but more about White House PR and damage control amid an avalanche of international and domestic criticism over Biden’s contradictory Gaza policy.