Is the $320 million U.S.-built and operated pier in Gaza going to end up being a White Elephant? Or will it be a magnet for terror attacks?
Ready or not, the pier will begin operating in the next few days. A shipment of supplies embarked from Cyprus on Thursday and will reach the pier by the weekend.
There's just one problem. Actually, there are several problems that are all connected to the fact that the pier may not even be necessary.
The Wall Street Journal reports, "The U.S. hasn’t specified a plan for how the aid will be stored, secured, and distributed once it reaches land."
Aid workers and organizations are singularly unimpressed.
One official called the pier "a joke." Pediatrician John Kahler, co-Founder of MedGlobal, said what they needed was opening the gates to let food into what he described as a "lab of malnutrition," not "silly piers or silly airdrops." Another medical aid official noted that the pier will cost $320 million, which could instead be used to buy a large number of truckloads of aid.
The Bizarre Gymnastics Of The Gaza Aid Pier
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 3, 2024
So let me get this straight. The US wound up building its "floating pier" a few miles off the coast of Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid, but nobody will be able to ship the aid directly to the pier to get it to Gaza. Instead, the aid… pic.twitter.com/NwpVo6JbeV
Other than that, it's a triumph of American ingenuity, even though there may not be enough aid delivered to make any difference.
You see, there's a war going on in Gaza, and there are a lot of ships that don't want to run the gauntlet to deliver the aid. And then there are the starving civilians who may line up at the end of the causeway and prevent trucks from unloading the aid. Since there's no clear authority on the ground to secure the distribution of aid, who is going to prevent the civilians from rushing the pallets of aid being unloaded?
Hamas said previously that it would treat the U.S. forces running the pier as an "occupying force." The 800 or so soldiers who are assigned to this duty are going to be sitting ducks.
The floating pier also faces environmental challenges. The choppy waters in the Mediterranean Sea could damage the pier and make it unsafe for people to be on it, military officials warned. The U.S. military has delayed the pier’s installation because of weather.
Even once the pier is up and running, the availability of a steady supply of aid by sea isn’t guaranteed. Only about 8,000 pallets worth of aid is in Cyprus, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the plan, which is only a few days worth of supplies for the 2.2 million people in Gaza. U.S. officials said it wasn’t clear to planners how to provide additional aid to sustain deliveries.
Recently, two mortar rounds landed in the marshaling area where the trucks will drop off their supplies. It could be that some unseen enemy was gaining targeting information for future attacks.
Humanitarian groups say that at least 500 trucks a day are needed to supply Gazans with food. The pier will handle 90 trucks a day initially and work their way up to 150 a day.
Did anyone tell Biden this before he announced the construction of the pier?
“Our concern is that the maritime corridor, instead of becoming a forward-looking access point for a future Palestine, a future Gaza,” said Bushra Khalidi, a policy lead at Oxfam, “looks like it will become another chokepoint.”
Indeed, aid groups are universally disdainful of the pier.
Deepmala Mahla, chief humanitarian officer for CARE, which has not been approached about supporting the pier operation, was blunt in her appraisal.
"Generally there is a sense of frustration: Why are we not focusing on land borders and why are we bringing these distractions?" she said of the pier.
Aid distribution efforts by land have faced significant delays because the Erez Crossing, the only border crossing between the northern part of the Gaza Strip and Israel, had been closed for months until it reopened this month. Israeli military also seized the Rafah border crossing earlier this week, which the U.N. warns could further restrict the distribution of aid to the Palestinian people. That, plus bottlenecks at the critical Kerem Shalom crossing, on the southeastern edge of Gaza, due to lengthy inspections, frustrates Mahla.
I can't see Hamas allowing this pier to operate. It benefits from Gazan starvation. Starving Gazans puts pressure on the international community to restrain Israel. And attacking Americans running the pier would complicate the situation for Biden, who would not only suffer a political blow but would also raise questions about the existence of the pier to begin with.
