A temporary dock built by the US military to deliver aid to Gaza was damaged by rough seas and will take at least a week to repair, according to US officials.
US forces began construction of the floating dock – attached to the Gaza shore by a temporary causeway – several weeks ago.
The project’s causeway portion is now considered damaged and will require repairs before being returned to its original location.
Humanitarian organizations have warned that the amount of aid reaching Palestinians in Gaza is only a fraction of what is needed to meet their needs.
The dock was first announced by US officials in March. includes two main components: a large floating dock made up of steel sections and a two-lane pier and causeway, 1,800 ft (548 m) long.
The causeway portion of the project consists of a series of 40ft (12m) long pieces of steel linked together and attached to the shore.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon confirmed that part of the causeway had broken due to rough seas.
While it is tethered to Gaza’s shoreline, the piece will need to be removed and taken to Israel’s Ashod port for repairs before it can be reattached to the causeway and returned to service.
According to Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh, the dock will be removed in the next two days with the help of the Israeli navy.
She added that repairs will take more than a week.
Ms. Singh said weather conditions in the area have not created an “optimal environment” for the dock’s deployment, but defense officials remain confident it will be operational again soon.
“I can’t predict the weather,” she said. “But we believe that given the time of year, we will be able to anchor this pier.”
Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East and one of the founders of Fogbow, a private company involved in plans to build a dock in Gaza, told the BBC that the delay involved regarding the weather “are expected” to “pose challenges”.
“But those challenges can be overcome and the mission itself is worth the effort,” he said. “People are in desperate need of aid and this is a means of providing it.”
On May 17, the US military confirmed that the first shipments of humanitarian aid had been delivered to Gaza via the dock, but in a separate incident the previous weekend, four dock support ships were not to anchor in “high seas countries”, causing two of them to run aground.
In a previous incident, three US soldiers participating in a mission at the Gaza dock were also injured, one of whom was in critical condition and was evacuated to a hospital in Israel.
Reuters news agency quoted a spokesperson for the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) as saying that the United Nations had transported a total of 137 aid trucks from the dock – about 900 tons – since it began. beginning of activity.
At the White House on Tuesday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the dock was never expected to “replace” aid coming to Gaza through land routes, but instead could can be a “human force”.
The Pentagon estimates more than 1,000 tons were shipped ashore, with just over 900 tons going to United Nations warehouses.
Despite growing concerns about the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he remained committed to “complete victory” in Rafah, the last remaining urban stronghold of Hamas in the south of the strip.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza began after gunmen from Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 252 others to Gaza as hostages.
According to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry, more than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war since then.
