US military begins construction of pier off Gaza for complex and dangerous aid delivery mission
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The United States has begun construction at sea of the temporary pier intended to help deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, the Pentagon said on Thursday, with the ultimate goal of delivering up to 150 trucks of aid per day to the starving population there.
The United States has begun construction at sea of the temporary pier intended to help deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, the Pentagon said on Thursday, with the ultimate goal of delivering up to 150 trucks of aid per day to the starving population there. “US military vessels to include the USNS Benavidez have begun to construct the initial stages of the temporary pier and causeway at sea,” said Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder at a briefing Thursday. A senior military official confirmed later on Thursday that “we are on track to begin delivery of humanitarian assistance to Gaza from the sea in early May,” which will begin at the equivalent of 90 trucks per day of aid and then “quickly scale up” to 150 trucks per day once full operational capacity is reached, the official said. The official said the US military is prepared to execute the mission “for several months,” but emphasized that there will be no US boots on the ground in Gaza — something President Joe Biden ruled out when he first announced in March that the pier would be built. Instead, the Israel Defense Forces will partner with the US military to anchor the causeway to the shore in Gaza “on day one,” the military official said. A US Army engineering unit has been training an IDF engineering unit in recent weeks on how to anchor the causeway to the shore, the official said. The IDF has also agreed to provide a security perimeter on the ground in Gaza “over a fairly wide area” where the aid will be offloaded, the official added. But US troops will be several hundred meters from the Gaza beach as they operate the system, known as Joint Logistics Over the Shore, or JLOTS, and potentially within range of rockets or missiles fired from terror groups from Gaza. An unidentified group fired mortars on Wednesday at the site on Gaza’s coastline where the aid is expected to be offloaded, but the military official said they don’t assess that the attack had anything to do with the US’ pier mission.
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