US military ships are working to build a pier for aid to Gaza. It will cost at least $320 million – Hartford Courant

By JON GAMBRELL (Associated Press)

JERUSALEM (AP) — A U.S. Navy ship and several military vessels involved in an American-led effort to bring more aid to the besieged Gaza Strip are off the coast of the enclave, building a floating platform for the operation , which the Pentagon says will happen on Monday. cost at least $320 million.

Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters that the cost is a rough estimate for the project and includes transportation of the equipment and pier sections from the US to the Gaza coast, as well as construction and relief operations.

Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press on Monday show the USNS Roy P. Benavidez about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the shore port, where the base for the project is being built by the Israeli military. USAV General Frank S. Besson Jr., an Army logistics ship, and several other Army boats are at the Benavidez, working to build what the Army calls the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, system.

A satellite image on Sunday by Planet Labs PBC showed pieces of the floating pier in the Mediterranean Sea next to the Benavidez. The vessel’s dimensions are consistent with known characteristics of the Benavidez, a Bob Hope-class vehicle freighter operated by the Military Sealift Command.

A U.S. military official confirmed late last week that the Benavidez had begun construction and that it was far enough offshore to ensure the troops building the platform would be safe. Singh said on Monday that construction of the causeway will take place next, which will then be anchored to the beach.

U.S. and Israeli officials have said they hope the floating pier will be in place by early May, the causeway will be attached to the shore and operations will be underway. The cost of the operation was first reported by Reuters.

Under the US military’s plan, the aid will be loaded onto commercial ships in Cyprus to sail to the floating platform now under construction off the coast of Gaza. The pallets are loaded onto trucks, which are then loaded onto smaller ships that travel to a metal, floating two-lane road. The 550-meter-long causeway will be attached to the coast by the Israeli army.

The U.S. military official said a U.S. Army engineering unit had been working with an IDF engineering unit in recent weeks to practice the installation of the causeway, training on an Israeli beach just offshore.

The new port is located just southwest of Gaza City, just north of a road bisecting Gaza that the Israeli army built during the current battle against Hamas. The area was the most densely populated before Israel’s ground offensive broke through, pushing more than 1 million people south toward the city of Rafah on the Egyptian border.

Now Israeli military positions line either side of the port, initially built as part of an effort led by World Central Kitchen from the rubble of buildings razed by Israel. That effort was halted after an Israeli airstrike on April 1 killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers while traveling in clearly marked vehicles on an Israeli-sanctioned delivery mission. The organization says it is resuming its work in Gaza.

Aid enters Gaza slowly, with long queues of trucks awaiting Israeli inspections. The US and other countries have also used airdrops to send food to Gaza. The US military official said deliveries on the sea route will initially be about 90 trucks per day and could quickly increase to about 150 trucks per day.

Aid agencies have said hundreds of such trucks are needed to enter Gaza every day.

In the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage, Israel cut off or severely restricted access to food, water, medicine, electricity and other aid in the Gaza Strip subject. Under pressure from the US and others, Israel says the situation is improving, although United Nations agencies have said much more aid is needed.

Gaza, just over twice the size of the city of Washington and home to 2.3 million people, is on the brink of famine. More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the fighting began, local health authorities say.

On Sunday, Israeli military spokesman Admiral Daniel Hagari said the amount of aid going to Gaza would continue to increase.

“This temporary pier will provide a ship-to-land distribution system that will further increase the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza,” he said in a statement.

But Hamas’ senior political official, Khalil al-Hayya, told the AP that the group would consider the Israeli forces — or forces from any other country — stationed at the pier to guard it as “an occupying force and aggression’, and that the militant group would oppose it.

On Wednesday, the port area was hit by a mortar attack, in which no one was injured.

____ Associated Press reporters Tara Copp and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.