The U.S. military completed construction of the floating pier and separately of its “causeway,” or “Trident” section, that will be anchored to the Gaza shore. But weather has delayed the delivery of the components to the Gaza area, Sabrina Singh, the deputy Pentagon press secretary, said during a briefing on Tuesday.
U.S. Central Command “temporarily paused moving the floating pier and Trident pier toward the vicinity of Gaza due to sea state considerations” late last week, Singh said.
“Today there are still forecasted high winds and high sea swells, which are causing unsafe conditions for the JLOTS components to be moved,” she added. (JLOTS is the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or the floating pier.)
The U.S. military and the White House have repeatedly said that no U.S. boots will be on the ground in Gaza to deliver aid.
The two sections of the floating pier “are complete and awaiting final movement offshore” as of Tuesday, Singh said.
“It’s expected that initially about 90 truckloads of supplies will transit the causeway each day and make their way into Gaza,” per the Pentagon. “When the operation reaches full capacity, as many as 150 trucks will make their way into Gaza daily.”
That will mean an initial “‘crawl, walk, run’ scenario,” according to Singh.
“We’re going to start with an additional small amount of aid trucks to flow in to make sure that the system works, that the distribution works, and then you’ll see that increase,” she said, “when we get to full operational capacity.”
Even that won’t be enough, she predicted.
The best way is “through those land routes, and we do want to see those opened up,” Singh said. “We do want to see aid continue to flow in through those land crossings. This is just one. It’s meant to help augment, to help complement, other ways that aid can get in.”
