• Latest
  • Trending
  • All
  • News
  • Business
  • Lifestyle
‘Amateur Hour’: Biden Admin’s Floating Gaza Pier Problems Go From Bad To Worse

‘Amateur Hour’: Biden Admin’s Floating Gaza Pier Problems Go From Bad To Worse

June 5, 2024
Sen. Ruben Gallego Boasts About Using Filibuster To Block Trump Agenda After Campaigning To Abolish It

Sen. Ruben Gallego Boasts About Using Filibuster To Block Trump Agenda After Campaigning To Abolish It

May 10, 2025
REPS LISA MCCLAIN, JULIE FEDORCHAK And PATRICE ONWUKA: Women Know The Value Of Tax Cuts To Our Economy

REPS LISA MCCLAIN, JULIE FEDORCHAK And PATRICE ONWUKA: Women Know The Value Of Tax Cuts To Our Economy

May 10, 2025
Dem Senate Candidates Running In ‘Toss-Up’ States Co-Sponsor Bill To Eliminate Women’s Sports

Dem Senate Candidates Running In ‘Toss-Up’ States Co-Sponsor Bill To Eliminate Women’s Sports

May 10, 2025
‘Paying Far More Attention’: Rubio Turns His Gaze To America’s Backyard After Years Of Neglect From Washington

‘Paying Far More Attention’: Rubio Turns His Gaze To America’s Backyard After Years Of Neglect From Washington

May 10, 2025
‘Team That Refuses To Win’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Blasts GOP Elites While Passing On Georgia Senate Run

‘Team That Refuses To Win’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Blasts GOP Elites While Passing On Georgia Senate Run

May 10, 2025
Cops Without Citizenship: New Mexico Law Opens Police Force To Non-Citizens

Cops Without Citizenship: New Mexico Law Opens Police Force To Non-Citizens

May 10, 2025
DAVID BLACKMON: Chris Wright Has To Clean Up Joe Biden’s Mess

DAVID BLACKMON: Chris Wright Has To Clean Up Joe Biden’s Mess

May 10, 2025
JACK POSOBIEC: The Left’s Cognitive Dissonance Has Turned To Violence

JACK POSOBIEC: The Left’s Cognitive Dissonance Has Turned To Violence

May 10, 2025
Pollster Explains Why Democrats Choose To Double Down On What Already Blew Up In Their Faces

Pollster Explains Why Democrats Choose To Double Down On What Already Blew Up In Their Faces

May 9, 2025
Judge Allows CIA To Fire Official Who Played Role In Biden’s Military COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate

Judge Allows CIA To Fire Official Who Played Role In Biden’s Military COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate

May 9, 2025
If You Thought Kamala Uttered One Too Many Word Salads Then Watch Gavin Newsom Go On About Trade

If You Thought Kamala Uttered One Too Many Word Salads Then Watch Gavin Newsom Go On About Trade

May 9, 2025
‘Worst Of The Worst’: Trump Admin Official Details ‘Circus’ Surrounding Democrats’ Attempt To Enter ICE Facility

‘Worst Of The Worst’: Trump Admin Official Details ‘Circus’ Surrounding Democrats’ Attempt To Enter ICE Facility

May 9, 2025
  • Donald Trump
  • State of the Union
  • Elon Musk
  • Tariffs
  • Congress
  • Faith
  • Immigration
Saturday, May 10, 2025
  • Login
IJR
  • Politics
  • US News
  • Commentary
  • World News
  • Faith
  • Latest Polls
No Result
View All Result
IJR
No Result
View All Result
Home News

‘Amateur Hour’: Biden Admin’s Floating Gaza Pier Problems Go From Bad To Worse

by Daily Caller News Foundation
June 5, 2024 at 9:38 am
in News, Wire
237 15
0
‘Amateur Hour’: Biden Admin’s Floating Gaza Pier Problems Go From Bad To Worse
491
SHARES
1.4k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Daily Caller News Foundation

New problems are mounting for the Biden administration’s $320 million floating Gaza aid pier which was already facing setbacks, despite becoming operational less than two weeks ago.

The U.S. military was forced to halt aid shipments to Gaza on Tuesday after the floating pier was damaged by bad weather over the weekend. The damage sustained from the bad weather is only the latest in a string of logistical and operational problems that have plagued the pier since it was constructed in mid May.

The JLOTS pier was a “horrible idea,” Michael DiMino, senior fellow at Defense Priorities and former CIA and defense official, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It’s a horrible idea due to the challenges that we just saw basically wreck the whole project.”

“It was never a sound plan to begin with… whether it’s accidents, or logistical hurdles, or risk to our troops and all these problems that have come to fruition. I don’t think that there should be any effort to try to continue this, or salvage it, or fix it,” DiMino said, pointing to safer, more effective methods of delivering aid to Gaza. “I think now is an opportunity to say this failed. Let’s wrap this up before we continue to tempt fate.”

 

Biden’s floating pier in Gaza appears to be sinking pic.twitter.com/bN8WxSZLXh

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 28, 2024

Getting aid into Gaza via the JLOTS system requires several steps. Aid is first delivered by vessels to the floating pier off the shores of Gaza, where it is facilitated by U.S. officials. It is then picked up by loading vessels and transferred back to a separate causeway pier attached to the shores of Gaza, then trucked by various aid groups to warehouses for distribution.

Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh confirmed that U.S. aid deliveries had been halted after rough weather and choppy waters broke the causeway pier apart on Tuesday, rendering it useless for the time being. The pier will be removed from the coast of Gaza and towed northbound to Israel for repairs; it will take “at least over a week” to fix the pier before it can be re-anchored on the Gaza coastline, Singh told reporters.

“We had a perfect storm of high sea states… creating not an optimal environment to operate this JLOTS pier,” Singh said Tuesday, responding to a question as to whether the pier is too fragile to withstand tough conditions. “Hopefully weather conditions won’t hinder it anymore [once it is operational again].”

The pier can only be operated during favorable sea conditions, in a maximum of three-foot waves and wind speeds not higher than 15 miles per hour. Aside from the minimum week timeline, reconstruction efforts cannot take place if sea conditions are poor, possibly adding further delays

The incident comes just a day after a separate stint of bad weather unmoored four U.S. Army vessels supporting the JLOTS system and sent them floating away from the operational site off the coast of Gaza. Two vessels floated north and were beached in Ashdod, Israel, while the other two anchored on the Gaza coast near the causeway. One of the vessels has been recovered, and the other three will be recovered by Thursday, Singh told reporters during Tuesday’s press briefing.

A video from the incident appears to depict U.S. soldiers from one of the beached vessels in Gaza stranded on the shores of Gaza while awaiting rescue, despite the Biden administration’s promise that there would be no U.S. “boots on the ground” in the region during JLOTS operations.

“This is amateur hour. It’s unacceptable that there’s so little planning that appears to have gone into this, to the point where half a dozen U.S. troops are washed ashore in a war zone surrounded by Hamas,” DiMino told the DCNF.

That problem was proceeded by another incident last week in which three U.S. troops suffered injuries during JLOTS operations. While exact details haven’t been disclosed — other than that it was a non-combat incident — two of the troops suffered minor injuries and the third was critically injured and subsequently evacuated to an Israeli hospital for emergency care; he is still in critical condition, Singh said Tuesday.

Days after the JLOTS system was constructed, shipments that made it to the shores of Gaza via the causeway and floating pier were quickly stolen off of trucks by crowds of hungry civilians, creating security concerns among aid groups responsible for distribution. The United Nations and U.S. have discussed alternate routes for trucks to transfer aid to warehouses in lieu of the incident.

There are also security concerns for the U.S. troops supporting the JLOTS operations. Pentagon officials, including Department of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, have admitted there is a baseline risk that Hamas operatives on the ground in Gaza could stage an attack on the causeway or fire at troops offshore.

More broadly, only a fraction of the aid needed to address the humanitarian needs of the millions of Palestinians in Gaza can be delivered via the JLOTS system, even when fully operational. U.S. officials have said that roughly 90 trucks worth of aid will be delivered to Gaza via JLOTS in the interim, and eventually up to 150 trucks once the system is at full capacity.

But the UN previously told the DCNF in a statement that hundreds of trucks of aid are needed on a daily basis.

“That makes the pier a relative drop in the bucket at best — a waste of $320 million American taxpayer dollars and the futile deployment of 1,000 U.S. service personnel,” Shoshana Bryen, senior policy director at the Jewish Policy Center, previously told the DCNF.

It is far safer and more effective to deliver aid to the Palestinians through other methods, chiefly by truck convoys through border crossings in Egypt to the south and Israel to the west, of which there are several. The international community has expressed concern that Israel and Egypt are not allowing enough aid to enter through these crossings, though Israel counters that it is already going to great lengths to ensure delivery; Egypt refused to allow hundreds of trucks worth of aid to enter Gaza through the Rafah border crossing until recently.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Tags: DCNFforeign-affairsU.S. News
Share196Tweet123
Daily Caller News Foundation

Daily Caller News Foundation

Advertisements

Top Stories June 10th
Top Stories June 7th
Top Stories June 6th
Top Stories June 3rd
Top Stories May 30th
Top Stories May 29th
Top Stories May 24th
Top Stories May 23rd
Top Stories May 21st
Top Stories May 17th

Join Over 6M Subscribers

We’re organizing an online community to elevate trusted voices on all sides so that you can be fully informed.





IJR

    Copyright © 2024 IJR

Trusted Voices On All Sides

  • About Us
  • GDPR Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  • Editorial Standards & Corrections Policy
  • Subscribe to IJR

Follow Us

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Politics
  • US News
  • Commentary
  • World News
  • Faith
  • Latest Polls

    Copyright © 2024 IJR

Top Stories June 10th Top Stories June 7th Top Stories June 6th Top Stories June 3rd Top Stories May 30th Top Stories May 29th Top Stories May 24th Top Stories May 23rd Top Stories May 21st Top Stories May 17th