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US to Permanently Close Gaza Aid Pier Operations

US to Permanently Close Gaza Aid Pier Operations

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The United States' floating pier off the coast of Gaza is expected to shut down soon due to repeated issues with weather conditions and logistical challenges. The $230 million pier was initially intended to facilitate aid deliveries to the 2.3 million people living in the Palestinian enclave, which has been facing famine. However, the project has faced numerous setbacks, including multiple breakdowns caused by bad weather, which have required the pier to be removed and reinstalled.

Stephane Dujarric
United Nations
1. We welcomed the pier as an additional resource while it worked. We will keep pushing for what we actually need, which is large-scale road transfer of aid into Gaza.
Pentagon
1. Temporarily relocating the pier will prevent structural damage caused by the heightened sea state.
US Department of Defense
1. What we continue to focus on is getting urgently needed aid to people in need across Gaza through all available mechanisms.
2. Ashdod port is open for humanitarian deliveries and we expect humanitarians will increasingly use this route.
3. Erez West and Kerem Shalom are also open, though insecurity and kinetic operations are constraining onward distributions within Gaza. The United States is actively involved in discussions with Israel, the UN, and other humanitarian organizations to determine ways to overcome these constraints and allow assistance to reach people in desperate need.
Patrick Ryder
Pentagon
1. My understanding is that CENTCOM [US Central Command] intends to tentatively re-anchor the pier this week.
2. The pier and support vessels and equipment are returning to Ashdod where they will remain until further notice. A re-anchoring date has not been set.
3. As highlighted in the initial deployment announcement, the pier has always been intended as a temporary solution to enable the additional flow of aid into Gaza during a period of dire humanitarian need, with limited access, supplementing land and air channels of delivery.
Roger Wicker
Republican Party
1. This chapter might be over in President Biden's mind, but the national embarrassment that this project has caused is not. The only miracle is that this doomed-from-the-start operation did not cost any American lives.
Samantha Power
US Agency for International Development
1. When the pier was brought online was one of the most desperate moments in this crisis.
Jake Sullivan
US National Security Agency
1. It is additive. It is something additional that otherwise we would not have gotten there when it got there. And that is a good thing.
2. Look, I see any result that produces more food, more humanitarian goods, getting to the people of Gaza as a success.
3. The real issue right now is not about getting aid into Gaza. It's about getting aid around Gaza effectively.
4. I do anticipate that in relatively short order, we will wind down pier operations.

US to Permanently Close Gaza Aid Pier Operations

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