Army engineers on Thursday began constructing a floating pier and embankment for humanitarian relief off the coast of Gaza. Once completed, relief workers could provide up to 2 million meals a day to residents of the enclave, Pentagon officials said.
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said the “early stages of construction of a temporary offshore pier and embankment” means the project's timing is in line with Pentagon officials' expectations. . The construction is intended to allow humanitarian aid to circumvent Israeli restrictions on land convoys to besieged areas.
General Ryder said defense officials expect the project, which President Biden ordered early last month, to be completed early next month. The facility will include an offshore platform to transfer aid from ships and a floating pier to transport aid ashore.
Aid groups have welcomed the plan, which adds to the humanitarian airdrops the U.S. military is conducting over Gaza. But aid officials argue, and defense officials agree, that the offshore project is not a suitable replacement for land convoys. When the war began more than six months ago, these aid convoys were depleted and have only partially recovered.
Some U.S. military officials have also privately expressed security concerns about the project, and General Rider said the military had launched a mortar attack on Wednesday that caused minimal damage in the area where the pier work is scheduled to take place. It said it was investigating the artillery attack. But he said that at the time of the mortar attack, U.S. forces had not begun any movement into the area.
A floating pier is being built next to a warship off the coast of Gaza. Defense officials say the warships are large and slow-moving vessels, so they will be given armed escort, especially if they come within range of the Gaza coast.
The United Nations has announced that famine is likely to begin within the Gaza Strip by the end of May.
Aid workers say long inspections of trucks, limited border crossing times and protests by Israelis are hampering aid at border crossings and distributing aid inside Gaza. emphasizes the difficulty of Israeli officials deny they are blocking the flow of aid and say the United Nations and aid groups are to blame for any holdups.
Biden administration and military officials detailed the complex plan in a call with the Pentagon and reporters Thursday afternoon, explaining how the piers and causeways will be assembled and how they will function. Army engineers are building a facility on a Navy ship in the eastern Mediterranean. One official said “sea assembly of the main parts” of the pier began on Thursday.
Biden officials have argued that the Pentagon can use floating piers to deliver aid without putting American troops in the Gaza Strip. Officials described a complex shuttle system through which aid would be loaded onto Cypriot naval ships and transported to floating platforms at sea.
The Pentagon's military abbreviation for the project is “J-Lots,” which stands for “Joint Logistics Over the Shore.”
The maritime causeway is different from the floating jetty through which aid supplies are lowered into Gaza. Israeli military engineering units will anchor the floating pier on the Gaza coast, a senior military official told reporters on a phone call with the Pentagon.
Shuttle boats operated by aid groups, the United Nations and other countries will then transport the supplies to a floating pier, where they will be loaded onto trucks driven by “third parties,” officials said. He declined to identify the third party.
The official said Israel was sending a brigade to ensure the safety of U.S. troops and aid workers working at the pier.
This activity is expected to provide enough assistance for approximately 90 trucks per day, with the number expected to increase to 150 per day once the system reaches full capacity. said the official.
