CNN: The temporary pier constructed by the US military to transport aid into Gaza broke apart and sustained damage in heavy seas on Tuesday in a major blow to the American-led effort to create a maritime corridor for humanitarian supplies into the war-torn enclave, the Pentagon said.
The pier
was “damaged and sections of the pier need rebuilding and
repairing,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said on Tuesday.
The pier will be removed from its location on the Gaza coast over the next 48
hours and taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod, where US Central Command will
carry out repairs, Singh said. The repairs will take more than a week, further
delaying the effort to get the maritime corridor fully operating.
Earlier,
four US officials told CNN the pier broke apart in heavy seas.
Part of
the pier, which consists of a narrow causeway to drive aid into Gaza and a
wider parking area to drop off supplies transported by ship, disconnected
on Sunday, the officials said. The parking area will have to be reconnected to
the causeway before the pier can be used again.
The
damage, first reported by NBC News,
occurred three days after heavy seas forced two small US Army vessels to beach
in Israel, according to US Central Command, while another two vessels broke
free of their moorings and were anchored near the pier.
“I believe most of our soldiers were able to remain on the vessels and still are currently on them,” Singh said during Tuesday’s Pentagon press briefing. “And … within the next 24 or 48 hours, the Israeli Navy will be helping push those vessels back and hopefully they’ll be fully operational by then.”
The pier, which
cost $320 million, had only begun operating on May 17 when heavy seas
forced the maritime shipments to stop one week later on
May 24, two days before part of the pier disconnected. It is
unclear when shipments will resume.
The
temporary pier, called the Joint Logistics Over the Shore (JLOTS), requires
very good sea conditions to operate. CNN reported previously that
JLOTS can only be operated safely in a maximum of 3-foot waves and winds less
than approximately 15 miles per hour.
Heavier
sea conditions delayed the deployment of the pier for
several weeks, as the system sat docked in the Israeli port of Ashdod waiting
for favorable conditions.
The US has
stressed that the temporary pier is only meant to augment humanitarian
shipments going through the land crossings between Israel and Gaza.
On
Thursday, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, deputy commander of US Central
Command, said 820 metric tons of aid had been delivered through the
pier to the Gaza beach, where the United Nations was responsible for
distributing it to the Palestinian population. The Pentagon said Thursday that
more than 1,000 metric tons of aid had been delivered before the temporary pier
had to halt operations.
Daniel
Dieckhaus, the director of USAID’s Levant Response Management Team, told
reporters Thursday that there were “thousands and thousands of tons” of
aid waiting in Cyprus to be delivered through the maritime corridor. But those
shipments are now paused with the temporary pier inoperable.
CNN’s Paul Murphy contributed
reporting.
This story
has been updated with additional details.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that the pier broke apart on Tuesday.
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