U.S. aid deliveries to Gaza by sea suspended after damage to temporary pier

TEL AVIV — The United States military has been forced to suspend aid deliveries into the Gaza Strip by sea after its temporary pier system off Gaza’s coast suffered damage in bad weather, a United Nations official, a U.S. official and an Israeli official told NBC News. 

The damage was to a causeway that is attached to the beach in Gaza, the officials said. Aid is shuttled onto the causeway by small boats after being initially unloaded on the massive floating dock. The U.N. official said it could take a week to repair.  

An official announcement from the U.S. is expected Tuesday. U.S. Central Command declined to comment when contacted by NBC News. 

The damage is the latest setback to the temporary pier system, which was first announced by President Joe Biden during his State of the Union address in March and became operational just two weeks ago.  

Over the weekend, four small U.S. military boats involved in ferrying aid broke from their moorings in bad weather, Central Command said. Two of them washed up on the coast of southern Israel near the city of Ashdod while the other two beached in Gaza. 

An American service member also remains in critical condition in an Israeli hospital after suffering noncombat injuries on the pier last week, a U.S. defense official said. Two other service members suffered minor injuries. 

The temporary pier, known in military parlance as a Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) capability, was designed to get more aid into Gaza and help fend off famine, which the U.N. says has broken out in the north of the besieged Strip.

Aid ships are inspected by Israeli security officials in Cyprus before sailing for the temporary pier, which sits several miles off the coast of Gaza. 

The first sign of problems with the causeway came from a video that emerged on Israeli social media Monday. In the footage, a man believed to be an Israeli soldier in Gaza filmed what appeared to be a piece of the causeway floating in the Mediterranean. 

“Look what’s happening to the American barge — it’s simply disconnected and practically swamped,” the man said in Hebrew. “Everything is sinking.”   

At least one truck appeared to be on the detached piece of causeway in the video. 

At full operating capacity, the pier is supposed to be able to deliver up to 150 trucks worth of aid every day, the Pentagon says. 

The U.S. military has also dropped aid into Gaza by parachute. But that has been criticized as both expensive and ineffective, especially when compared to delivering it through land crossings controlled by Egypt and Israel. 

The new hurdles to helping the beleaguered Palestinians surfaced after the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court last week announced he was seeking the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s defense minister. The court also announced it was seeking arrest warrants for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and other Hamas leaders.

The ICC alleges that Israeli leaders bear criminal responsibility for a list of “war crimes,” including starving civilians.

Israel has strongly denied the allegations and has pointed to the pier as proof that it is working to deliver food to Gaza by sea, as well as by air and land.