How Biden’s Gaza ‘aid’ pier aided Israeli genocide in Gaza before being dismantled

By Mehdi Moosvi

The US military on Wednesday announced the dismantling of its floating "aid" pier off the coast of Gaza which observers believe was meant to facilitate the Israeli genocide instead of delivering aid to Palestinians.

“The maritime surge mission involving the pier is complete. So there’s no more need to use the pier,” Navy Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, the deputy commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM), said.

The pier was stationed at the Israeli-occupied port of Ashdod after being removed from the Gaza coastline in late June. According to Americans, its purpose was to facilitate the transfer of aid from Cyprus, the logistical hub for the operation, to Gaza, but the mission was doomed from the outset.

“Our assessment is that the temporary pier has achieved its intended effect to surge a very high volume of aid into Gaza and ensure that aid reaches the civilians in Gaza in a quick manner,” Cooper said, adding that nearly 20 million pounds of aid entered Gaza via the pier, the equivalent of about 600 truckloads.

Following its mid-May inauguration, the pier remained operational for roughly 20 days. Aid organizations utilized it for only half of that duration, citing security issues.

Over two months, only 8,000 metric tons of aid was transported through the dock, despite the US Department of Defense originally stating that the pier would facilitate the transfer of as many as two million meals daily to the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza.

The humanitarian catastrophe in the besieged Palestinian territory, including starvation, according to observers, is the direct result of the Israeli regime’s genocidal war and crippling blockade.

They argue that the US has been directly complicit in the Israeli regime’s war on Gaza, which includes people dying of starvation amid a lack of essential commodities, including food and water.

Built at a cost of $230 million, the 370-meter (1,200-foot) floating structure was approved by the order of US President Joe Biden on March 7, under the guise of an “emergency mission.”

“Tonight, I’m directing the US military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier on the Gaza coast in the Mediterranean. This pier will facilitate the arrival of large ships loaded with food, water, medicine, and temporary shelters,” Biden said during his State of the Union address.

A significant portion of aid that arrived in Gaza ended up rotting in the sun for weeks following a bloody assault by Israel using American weapons in central Gaza, which killed almost 300 Palestinians.

The death toll in the ongoing genocide, which is now in its tenth month, has already neared 39,000, most of them children and women. Almost two million others have been rendered homeless.

US-built $320m pier in Gaza, washed away in high seas, is doomed to fail

US-built floating pier near Gaza, washed away in high seas on Saturday, is an attempt by Washington to hoodwink the international community at a time when millions of Palestinians are starving.

Sinister intentions 

The pier saw its existential motive in facilitating an Israeli attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp on June 8, when the killing of 300 Gazans was justified in the name of extracting four Israeli captives.

“They (the troops) were then flown out of Gaza via the US-built pier, which had been reinstalled on the coast on Friday after undergoing tens of millions in repairs,” The Cradle online news magazine said in a report.

Before the attack on Nuseirat, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas had given multiple warnings about the purpose of the floating pier, stating that it was constructed to transport weapons to Israel.

“The pier is intended to provide cover for Washington’s support for the (Israeli) occupation with weapons,” the Gaza-based resistance movement said in a statement in May.

The head of the Government Media Office in Gaza emphasized during a June press briefing that the conditions in the northern areas of the Gaza Strip were critical, with the floating pier, which is intended to provide assistance, proving ineffective in alleviating the escalating famine.

He revealed that the pier was used by the regime forces in carrying out the Nuseirat massacre.

He criticized the floating water US pier as a "lie", "mirage", and a "conspiracy that exposed American intentions," rendering it complicit in the ongoing genocide.

Arlan Fuller, Project Hope's head of emergency response, stated that a widely circulated picture of "the helicopter taking off from the beach was contravening the overall use of the humanitarian space".

Senator Roger Wicker from Mississippi, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, labeled the pier constructed in early June as a costly trial aimed at satisfying the extreme left wing.

Last month, the UN World Food Program halted the distribution of aid that came through the floating dock to evaluate the security conditions, amid an investigation into whether the Israeli military had used the structure in committing a bloodbath in the Nuseirat camp.

US's broken Gaza pier

US Gaza Pier was supposed to be US way of showing the world that it cares about the Palestinian lives, but it came with a rather hefty price tag.

Redundant at all costs

After the idea of the floating “aid” pier was proposed, experts warned that the need for such a project did not exist, and it was even more feasible and practical to get in aid through land routes.

Aid organizations had earlier expressed disapproval, deeming it an expensive diversion. They argued that Washington should have instead focused on exerting pressure on Israel to permit more aid to pass through Gaza's land borders, which was a more practical option.

In light of urgent circumstances, the UN and other humanitarian organizations emphasized that utilizing land transport routes was the most efficient solution to meet the pressing humanitarian needs in Gaza.

Apart from the idea of aid flowing in through the sea route, the pier repeatedly broke free of the shore during its short-lived existence, which also caused interruptions to its operations.

The pier also sparked controversy in the US Congress, with Republicans accusing Biden of using it as a political maneuver.

 “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,” Wicker was quoted as saying.

According to experts, the doomed project, which was funded by American taxpayers, was an outcome of the complex network of American geopolitical interests and agendas, attested by Biden’s statements:

“This is a prudent investment. It will benefit American security for generations to come,” “We will make Israel stronger than ever,” and “We will build a good future in the Middle East (West Asia).”

From the very outset, the “aid” pier was essentially intended to aid the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

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