US officially ends Gaza floating pier operations

The US military announced on Wednesday that it is shutting down its floating pier off the coast of Gaza, formally closing a humanitarian project experts and aid groups criticised as a public relations stunt.

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

Cooper said that Washington would shift its aid operations to the port of Ashdod in Israel.

Aid groups and former US officials have described the pier as a means to divert attention away from Israel’s ongoing destruction of Gaza, as well as Israel’s restriction of aid to Palestinians in the area.

“This pier has been an immense and costly distraction from the work that we need to do and the problems we need to solve,” Scott Paul, who leads humanitarian policy at Oxfam, previously told Middle East Eye.

“This was a way of avoiding addressing the most critical obstacles to humanitarian assistance in Gaza, and so I think it’s fair to say that it has not met even the administration’s modest expectations for it.”

The $230m structure, first announced by US President Joe Biden in March and later anchored on 17 May, was initially scheduled to remain operational in Gaza until at least 31 July.

According to US Central Command, the system had delivered over $20m of aid to Gaza. However, the pier was forced to close several times after it broke down and needed repairs. 

In total, the pier was only operational for fewer than 25 days, and aid groups only used it for half that time.

The UN World Food Programme paused its operations there in June, citing security concerns.

The pause in operations came after Israeli forces entered the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza in disguise and using a commercial truck.

Israeli forces came out of the truck and launched a planned hostage rescue operation, which led to a massacre of at least 274 Palestinians at the expense of securing four hostages.

At the end of the attack, an Israeli helicopter used to escort the hostages out of Gaza was seen parked on the beach next to the pier. 

The proximity of the Israeli military helicopter to the pier had raised concerns that aid trucks could become targets in the war.

Top Republican lawmaker Mike Rogers also criticised the pier, calling on the Biden administration to shut it down and replace the operation by delivering aid through land routes.

“I urge the administration to immediately cease this failed operation before further catastrophe occurs and consider alternative means of land and air-based humanitarian aid delivery,” Rogers wrote in a letter sent to the Biden administration.