US completes construction of Gaza aid pier: Pentagon

The US military has completed construction of the Gaza aid pier, but weather conditions mean it is currently unsafe to move the two-part facility into place, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

The pier -- which the US military started constructing last month and which will cost at least $320 million -- is aimed at boosting deliveries of desperately needed humanitarian assistance to Gaza, which has been ravaged by more than six months of Israeli operations against Hamas.

"As of today, the construction of the two portions of the JLOTS -- the floating pier and the Trident pier -- are complete and awaiting final movement offshore," Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told journalists, using an acronym for Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore -- the official name for the pier capability.

"Today there are still forecasted high winds and high sea swells, which are causing unsafe conditions for the JLOTS components to be moved. So the pier sections and military vessels involved in its construction are still positioned at the port of Ashdod," Singh said.

US Central Command "stands by to move the pier into position in the near future," she added.

The vessels and the under-construction pier were moved to the Israeli port due to bad weather last week. Once the weather clears, it will be anchored to the Gaza shore by Israeli soldiers to keep US troops off the ground.

Aid will then be transported via commercial vessels to a floating platform off the Gaza coast, where it will be transferred to smaller vessels, brought to the pier and that is anchored to shore, and taken to land by truck for distribution.

Plans for the pier were first announced by US President Joe Biden in early March as Israel held up deliveries of assistance by ground.

More than two months later, the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire, and the United Nations said Tuesday that Israel had denied it access to the Rafah crossing -- the key entry point for humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.