The US military announced that its mission to build and operate a temporary floating pier off the coast of the Gaza Strip has been closed and the extraordinary but troubled efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinians have officially come to an end, BTA reported.
The pier, whose upcoming construction President Joe Biden announced in a televised address to Congress in March, was a massive undertaking involving about 1,000 US troops. Aid began to be delivered via the jetty to Gaza in May. The operation was aimed at preventing starvation in Gaza after months of war between Israel and Hamas.
But bad weather and difficulties in distributing aid in Gaza have limited the effectiveness of the effort, which the US military says is the largest ever to deliver aid in the Middle East. The temporary pier was only used for about 20 days.
„The sea diversion mission involving the pier has been completed. So the need to use the pier is gone," Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, deputy commander of US Central Command, told a briefing.
Cooper specified that the distribution of aid to Gaza arriving by sea would be transferred to the Israeli port of Ashdod.
Aid worth at least 5 million pounds, which is either in Cyprus or on ships, will arrive in Ashdod in the coming days, the vice admiral said.
„It is our assessment that the temporary pier has achieved its intended result of channeling a very large volume of aid to Gaza and ensuring that aid reaches civilians in Gaza quickly," Cooper added.
The row has become a touchy subject in the US Congress, where Republicans have described it as a political stunt by Biden, who has been under pressure from his fellow Democrats to do more to help the Palestinians after months of staunch support for the punitive war. of Israel against “Hamas“.
„This chapter may be over in President Biden's mind, but the national shame this project caused is not. The only happiness in the misfortune is that this operation, doomed from the start, did not take American lives." , said Sen. Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Cooper said he expects the pier, which could be in use by the end of July, to cost less than the $230 million the Pentagon had projected.
The pier has not been used since June when it was moved to Ashdod port due to rough seas.
Aid officials say around 600 trucks of humanitarian aid and commercial supplies are needed in Gaza every day to meet the needs of the population.