US-built pier will be removed from Gaza coast and repaired after damage from rough seas
The Pentagon says the U.S.-built temporary pier taking humanitarian aid to starving Palestinians has been damaged in rough seas and weather and will be removed from the coast of Gaza to be repaired
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S.-built temporary pier that has been taking humanitarian aid to starving Palestinians for less than two weeks will be removed from the coast of Gaza to be repaired after getting damaged in rough seas and weather, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
Over the next two days, the pier will be pulled from the beach and sent to the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, where U.S. Central Command will repair it, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters. She said the fixes will take “at least over a week” and then the pier will need to be anchored back into the beach in Gaza.
“From when it was operational, it was working, and we just had sort of an unfortunate confluence of weather storms that made it inoperable for a bit,” Singh said. “Hopefully just a little over a week, we should be back up and running.”
The pier, used to carry in humanitarian aid arriving by sea, is one of the few ways that free food and other supplies are getting to Palestinians who the U.N. says are on the brink of famine amid the nearly 8-month-old war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
