Waves Sweep Away U.S.-Built Floating Pier in Gaza

Date: 25 May 2024 - 22:09

News ID: ۱۲۷۶۶۰

AL-QUDS (Dispatches) – Waves swept away a section of the American floating pier installed to carry aid to Gaza, Israeli media reported Saturday.
“Part of the American pier was washed ashore in Ashdod (a city in the Israeli-occupied territory),” said Channel 12.
“The Israeli Navy is currently helping to connect the separated part,” it added.
There were no injuries reported.
The U.S. army in mid-May announced it finished constructing a temporary floating pier off the coast of Gaza Strip allegedly to provide much needed aid to the blockaded enclave.
The Hamas government in Gaza rejected America’s establishment of the floating pier designed to increase the amount of aid getting into the besieged strip as a publicity stunt “to beautify its ugly face.”
“The floating water dock off the coast of Gaza does not meet the needs of our Palestinian people for food. We demand the opening of land crossings and the immediate and urgent entry of aid and goods through them,” the Gaza government media office said in a statement issued on Friday night.
U.S. President Joe Biden ordered the construction of the pier in March. Shortly afterward, the U.S. deployed naval ships to the Eastern Mediterranean to construct the “floating pier” that will reportedly receive aid from Cyprus, and send it onward to Gaza.
The U.S. announcement came amid mounting pressure on Israel to allow aid into Gaza as the UN and other aid agencies have warned of imminent famine due to Israel’s prevention of the land-based delivery of life-saving aid to Gaza.
Israel continues its brutal onslaught on Gaza despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.
Over 35,850 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, the vast majority being women and children, and nearly 80,300 others injured since October.
More than seven months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.
Israel is accused of “genocide” at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which in its latest ruling demanded an immediate halt to the operation in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, where more than a million displaced Palestinians were seeking refuge.