Deadly delays

The $320 million floating pier built by the US to deliver humanitarian aid to 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza is problematic. On March 6, President Joe Biden ordered the US military to proceed to the Eastern Mediterranean to construct and position off Gaza a massive temporary pier. The aim of the project is to make a large-scale deliveries of food, medicine, fuel, and water for Israeli besieged and blockaded Gazans facing famine and disease as well as bombs.

Between March 9 and 21, an armada of US support ships and landing craft left the US for the Mediterranean. On April 26, six weeks later, assembly began of the prefabricated pier and associated causeway. This took place at sea eight kilometres from Gaza’s coast. Meanwhile, hunger and disease stalked Palestinians. Delay costs lives.

The first problem is that the project is too complicated. The system works in this way: Cargo is offloaded by US (and perhaps other) ships onto the floating pier positioned five kilometres off Gaza. Small boats take the supplies to the US-built 500-meter floating causeway connected to the shore. Trucks transport cargoes to the landing stage on Gaza. Humanitarian organisation lorries collect and distribute the aid. Designed so that no US troops would set foot in Gaza, the system can break down at any stage due to weather, technical difficulties, and timing.

The installation was meant to be operational by early May. On May 1, the Pentagon announced the pier and associated causeway had been moved into Israel’s Ashdod port where construction would be completed. Gusty winds and one-metre-high waves had already combined to disrupt the flow of aid. This creates an environmental problem for the ambitious pier project which Biden and Pentagon planners did not anticipate in March.

On May 8, while the pier remained in Ashdod three mortar rounds struck the intended land delivery site of the causeway. This is the second time mortars have hit this site. The source of the rounds has not been identified. Warfare is a third serious problem.

On the 9th, the US naval container ship Sagamore carrying US and British aid left the Cypriot port of Larnaca where the next day it anchored off Ashdod and began to discharge its cargo on to Roy P. Benavides, a US naval roll-on-roll-off vehicle cargo vessel. The Sagamore returned to Larnaca to collect more supplies.

The fourth problem is political. British military personnel were initially recruited to drive loaded lorries along the causeway to land. However, Britain pulled out, citing security concerns. It has been proposed that Israeli drivers could do this job. However, international aid agencies object to this possibility and to the Israeli’s military’s control of the landing stage on Gaza. These non-governmental agencies seek to minimise Israeli involvement in aid deliveries as Israeli interference has curbed the flow of aid through land corridors. These agencies also fear being regarded by Gazans as collaborating with Israel.

The fifth problem is the volume of aid. Ninety lorry-loads of aid are initially set to reach Gaza daily on the pier-causeway and this number is meant to increase to 150. This is less than one-third of pre-war lorry loads of 500 and far below 1,000 now needed due to the minimal amounts reaching Gaza since Oct.7.

The sixth problem is the positioning of the pier-causeway. Relief agencies argue this should be in the north which has been starved of supplies over the last seven months as Israel has tried to empty Gaza City, the largest urban area, and the north of Palestinians. However, the US plan is to anchor the pier offshore from Israel’s Netzarim military road which bisects Gaza into northern and southern sectors. Landing supplies there would enable Israeli military checkpoints to slow or deny deliveries to the 300,000 people remaining in the north where World Food Programme director Cindy McCain declared there is “full blown famine” and warned it “is moving its way south.”

The original plan for the maritime corridor, dubbed Amalthea, was conceived by Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides and adopted by European Commissioner Ursula van der Leyen, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which provided finance. Aid parcels donated by the UAE collected by the US-based World Central kitchen (WCK) were transported to Gaza on April 30 by a little flotilla. The organiser was the Spanish tugboat Open Arms, named after the charity which deploys it, and included a barge, the Jennifer, a river boat, and a second tugboat. WCK staff – who operate 68 kitchens in Gaza – built a jetty from rubble in northern Gaza where aid landed. This was a laudable effort because it was motivated by genuine humanitarian concern. Not politics.

On April 1, Israeli drones killed seven WCK staff members who unloaded and warehoused 100 tonnes of the 3oo tonnes of supplies brought by the little flotilla. Israel’s targeting of the WCK workers was met by global outrage. Sailings were paused and nave not resumed.

On April 28, the Jennifer set sail from Larnaca and was directed to Ashdod from where its cargo was transported to the south to be loaded on trucks and join hundreds of lorries awaiting Israeli clearance to enter Gaza.

The Amalthea effort faced problems with weather and waves and Israel which had pro forma approved the maritime corridor but remained reluctant to accept implementation. Since it has been taken over by Biden and the US military, the independents have been swept away. USAID has assumed a dominant role. While Israel has no choice but to cooperate, the limited volume of aid to be delivered via the pier-causeway system – weather permitting – by the US cannot satisfy needs. Relief agencies agree that only deliveries by land can achieve this objective. Biden’s calls for Israel to allow humanitarian supplies to reach Gaza have fallen on deaf ears in Tel Aviv.

The pier project allows Biden to claim he is endeavouring to deliver aid to Gaza at a time his provision of military supplies to Israel is castigated by members of his own party and anti-war protesters at dozens of university and college campuses as well as most of the world’s governments.

Photo: TNS