Republicans are skeptical about the $230 million project, which includes 1,000 soldiers.
The US military plans to suspend operations at its dock off Gaza on Friday, temporarily moving the floating structure to an Israeli port to weather high seas and huge waves expected to hit the region in the coming days, according to an official familiar with the plans. .
This is the third time in one month that the structure has suspended operations due to weather, and the latest setback for the ambitious $230 million humanitarian project involving 1,000 US soldiers.
“We are doing everything we can to make it a success,” the official said.
Complicating matters further, humanitarian aid brought to shore via the pier is being held at a nearby facility after the United Nations halted deliveries last week over security concerns. The United Nations said on Friday that it had no timetable for resuming distribution.
The difficulties come as the United States is running out of time to make use of the temporary pier, which was initially scheduled to be a 90-day project and is likely to lose its ability to transport aid at the end of August when sea levels rise again. Storms would force military officials to remove it.
The project, announced by President Joe Biden in his State of the Union address in March, was supposed to deliver about two million meals a day to starving Gaza, while Israeli officials stopped aid trucks at land crossings, citing security concerns that some Aid could reach Hamas.
More than 2,500 metric tons of humanitarian aid has been delivered through the pier so far. US officials admitted that much of this aid did not reach its distribution points. However, they say the pier has been essential in bringing much-needed aid to shore that would not have arrived otherwise, and is meant to augment — not replace — aid transported through land crossings.
CNN was the first to report the US military’s plans to move the dock to Ashdod on Friday. While this is the third time the Army has temporarily halted shipments coming through the dock, it is the second time the system — called Joint Logistics over the Shore, or JLOTS — has had to be relocated. The first time the pier was moved was after it disintegrated and needed repairs. This time, the dock is being dismantled and moved as a precaution to prevent the temporary floating dock from collapsing in bad weather.
The rocky start angered Republican critics who described the dock as an impractical political endeavor, rather than a serious foreign aid program.
“So far, the only accomplishment has been increased cost and risk for the 1,000 deployed U.S. troops,” Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on Twitter.
Republican Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, this week called the project an “irresponsible dock experiment” that should be “immediately ended before disaster strikes.”
Citing the three service members who were injured while working on the pier, along with the damaged Army ships that ran aground, Rogers called it a waste of money and “an embarrassment to the administration.”
He added in a statement: “This operation was a failure and had no basis in reality.”
The Pentagon defended the program as necessary to address the dire humanitarian situation.
“It’s very important for people who are struggling right now … to get any help they can get by any means,” Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters in May when the pier was temporarily inoperable. “If you want to call it a failure, I leave it up to you. What I can tell you is that we don’t control the weather.”
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