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With the U.S.-Built Pier in Gaza Under Repair, Stable Passageways for Aid Remain TBD

The administration has not presented a plan for the pier if another storm surges.

A U.S. Army landing craft is beached after being swept by wind and current from the temporary humanitarian pier in the Gaza Strip.
The Department of Defense said repairs on the Trident pier system will take “more than a week” in the Israeli port of Ashdod. Tsafrir Abayov/AP

As the United States begins repairing the emergency pier off the coast of Gaza, its early breakage raises questions about the project’s viability as a stable passageway for humanitarian aid to the region.

Rough seas and weather seriously damaged the pier less than two weeks into operation. The pier, which the administration has deemed a “crucial” avenue to get much-needed aid into Gaza, is currently being removed for repairs.

“The one thing that we couldn’t anticipate was that North African weather storm,” Defense Department spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters Thursday. “Given the high seas that were already happening in the Eastern Mediterranean, that combined force of that other storm made the pier inoperable and damaged it.”