The US military begins construction of a relief pier for Gaza

The US military has started construction of a pier aimed at boosting the delivery of much-needed aid to Gaza, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

The small coastal area has been devastated by more than six months of brutal Israeli bombing and ground operations, leaving the civilian population in need of humanitarian aid to survive.

“I can confirm that U.S. military vessels… have begun construction of the first phases of the temporary pier and causeway at sea,” Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters.

Indications are that the pier will be operational by early May and “everything is on track at the moment,” he said.

Highlighting the dangers in Gaza, Ryder said “a mortar attack of some sort” caused minimal damage near an area of ​​land that will ultimately be a site for aid delivery.

Israel’s Defense Ministry, responsible for Palestinian civil affairs, claimed militants fired mortars at a humanitarian work site in northern Gaza on Wednesday during a visit by UN staff, with no casualties reported.

A senior US military official told reporters that “we do not believe the attack had anything to do with the (auxiliary pier) mission or the delivery of humanitarian aid from the sea.”

‘Acute food insecurity’

The military official also outlined how the process for delivering maritime aid will work, saying the aid will first enter Cyprus where it will be screened and prepared for delivery.

The aid will then be loaded onto commercial ships for transport to a floating platform miles off the coast of Gaza.

There it is transferred to smaller ships that take the assistance to a pier anchored to the shore.

Trucks will then drive the aid over the platform, where a distribution partner will deliver it to Gaza, the official said, noting that initial operating capacity will be 90 trucks per day, later increasing to 150 trucks per day.

The senior military official reiterated that there will be no American “boots on the ground,” and said an Israeli military unit will be responsible for anchoring the pier to the shore.

A senior U.S. government official said the U.S. Agency for International Development “will work with U.N. agencies to deliver the lifesaving aid once it reaches Gaza through the Maritime Corridor.”

The official painted a bleak picture of the situation in Gaza and the urgent need for aid, saying that “the entire population of Gaza – 2.2 million people – faces acute food insecurity.”

“More than half of the population in northern Gaza faces catastrophic food insecurity,” while “in southern Gaza, almost a quarter of the population faces this type of catastrophic food insecurity,” the official said.