US secures floating pier in Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid

The floating pier is pulled by an army tug boat off the shore of Gaza on May 1. Credit: CNN

A floating pier designed to allow humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza has been anchored to a beach in the area, according to US Central Command.

The pier travelled from the port of Ashdod, Israel on Wednesday, around 30 miles from where it was then secured to the Gaza beach.

The supplies will be desperately needed as no food has entered the two main border crossings in southern Gaza for more than a week.

Some 1.1 million Palestinians are on the brink of starvation, according to the United Nations, while “full-blown famine” is taking place in the north of the territory.

Trucks are expected to begin moving the humanitarian aid ashore in the coming days, with the UK on Wednesday having announced a shipment - including 8,400 temporary shelters -currently making its way from Cyprus to Gaza via the new pier.

“The aid will be distributed within Gaza as soon as feasible,” the foreign office said in a statement.

Meanwhile, US humanitarian aid is already positioned on a ship at the Ashdod port for offloading when the pier is ready, the Pentagon has said.

The pier, which was built by the US Navy and Army, will initially facilitate the delivery of an estimated 90 truckloads of international aid into Gaza each day, and scale to up to 150 truckloads a day once fully operational.

The Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) system is made up of two parts: the floating pier where shipments will be offloaded and a raised track to transfer the shipments to the distribution point in Gaza.

In a news briefing on Wednesday, the deputy commander of the US Central Command Brad Cooper stressed that the pier was not intended to replace land routes into Gaza, and there would be “no US military boots on the ground in Gaza.”

He also explained the process for facilitating aid via the pier, which starts with the supplies arriving in Cyprus where they are screened and prepared.

A US soldier tosses a line to an army tug vessel from the floating pier off the shore of Gaza on May 1. Credit: CNN

Large commercial ships then bring that aid to a “floating platform” near the Gaza coast, where it is then transferred to smaller vessels that can dock at the temporary pier. Once ashore, the aid will be distributed into Gaza by the UN and World Food Programme.

There are currently “hundreds of tonnes of aid ready for delivery and thousands of tonnes of aid in the pipeline” from multiple nations, Mr Cooper added.

The installation of the pier faced several obstacles before operations could begin, including incursions by Israel into Rafah.

Israel ordered new evacuations in the southern city on Saturday as it prepared to expand its military operations in the area.

Fighting has continued to escalate across the region with heavy clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinians on the outskirts of the crowded area, leaving the crucial nearby aid crossings inaccessible and forcing more than 110,000 people to flee north.

More than 35,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the October 7 attacks, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The attacks in Israel by Hamas killed around 1,200 people, most of whom were civilians, and they triggered full-blown conflict in Gaza. Hamas took around 250 hostages, and Israel says militants still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.

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