US declares end to troubled Gaza aid pier mission

The US military's problem-plagued mission to bring desperately needed aid into Gaza via a temporary pier has ended, with deliveries shifting to an Israeli port, a senior American officer said Wednesday.

US President Joe Biden has expressed disappointment in the performance of the pier, which has repeatedly broken free of the shore because of bad weather since its initial installation in mid-May, limiting the time it has been operational.

"The maritime surge mission involving the pier is complete, so there's no more need to use the pier," Vice Admiral Brad Cooper told journalists. "It's now transitioning... to a port in Ashdod, Israel," which "offers a more sustainable path."

Deliveries from Cyprus to Ashdod, and then on to northern Gaza, have already begun, with more than a million pounds of aid moving via that route in recent weeks, said Cooper, the deputy head of the US Central Command.

He hailed the temporary pier effort -- via which nearly 20 million pounds of aid arrived during the roughly 20 days it was operational -- as a "historically unprecedented operation to deliver aid into an active combat zone without any US boots on the ground."

But the project -- which Cooper said cost less than a previous estimate of $230 million, though a final figure is not yet available -- has faced repeated issues starting in May, when the pier was damaged by bad weather and had to be removed for repairs.

It was then reattached on June 7, but was moved to Ashdod on June 14 to protect it from anticipated high seas -- a situation that was repeated later in the month.

- Land, air and sea -

Distribution of aid once it reached land has also been a problem, with the UN World Food Programme suspending deliveries of assistance that arrived via the pier last month to assess the security situation after Israel conducted a military operation nearby.

Biden announced the pier project during his State of the Union address in March as Israel held up deliveries of assistance by land, and the Pentagon has said it helped push the Israeli government to open more aid routes.

"The deployment of this pier has... helped secure Israeli commitment to opening additional crossings into northern Gaza," Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh recently told journalists.

But the president told a news conference last week that the pier had not worked as well as he had hoped.

"I've been disappointed that some of the things that I've put forward have not succeeded as well, like the port we attached from Cyprus -- I was hopeful that would be more successful," Biden said of the project.

In addition to working to establish a maritime route for aid to Gaza, the United States has also worked with other countries to conduct air drops, which Cooper said have delivered more than 2.4 million pounds of aid so far, "ensuring vital assistance reached the point of need very quickly."

And "our forces have coordinated with international partners to open new land routes, enabling the transportation of 33.5 million pounds of aid into Gaza via land so far," he said.

Gaza is suffering through a conflict that broke out after Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has devastated the narrow coastal territory and killed at least 38,794 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from Gaza's health ministry.