The Pentagon announced on Wednesday (July 17) that the U.S. military will permanently dismantle a temporary floating dock built on the coast of Gaza, formally ending the challenging mission of providing humanitarian aid to the Palestinians through the Mediterranean.
According to Reuters, President Biden announced the construction of the dock in March, a costly project that involved about 1000 U.S. troops. In May, aid supplies began to be transported to Gaza through the dock to help the region avoid famine after months of ongoing conflict.
However, despite the U.S. military describing it as the largest humanitarian aid operation in the Middle East region to date, adverse weather conditions along with distribution challenges in Gaza limited the effectiveness of the mission.
U.S. Central Command Vice Commander, Navy Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, said in a press conference on Wednesday, “The maritime reinforcement missions involving the dock have been completed. Therefore, there is no longer a need to use this dock.”
Cooper stated that the work of distributing aid supplies to Gaza by sea will now shift to the Port of Ashdod in Israel.
Although the temporary dock helped transport much-needed aid supplies to the gathering point on the coast of Gaza, due to adverse weather conditions, the U.S. military had to repeatedly remove the 1200-foot (about 370 meters) floating dock.
The dock was relocated to the Port of Ashdod in June due to weather conditions and has not been used since then. It is currently unclear whether the U.S. military has started dismantling the floating dock still located in Ashdod, and then transport it back to the U.S.
For security reasons, the United Nations World Food Programme suspended operations at the dock in June, causing aid supplies to accumulate on the coast of Gaza.
The United Nations has long argued that maritime transport cannot replace land transport. The organization stated that land transport should continue to be the primary focus for delivering aid to Gaza, as a global hunger monitoring agency last month warned of the high likelihood of famine in Gaza.