Expert claims US-built pier fails to provide proper Gaza aid

As the US-built pier intended to boost Gaza aid deliveries faces repeated problems with bad weather damaging the structure and causing interruptions to the arrival of needed assistance, an expert claims that the US’s plan will hardly accomplish its goal, The New Arab and agencies reported on June 21st.
The $230 million pier project has successfully delivered over 4,100 metric tonnes of aid, though it has only been operational for limited periods. President Joe Biden had previously pledged that the pier would enable a “massive increase” in assistance to reach Gaza “every day.”
“The Gaza pier regretfully amounted to an extremely expensive distraction from what is truly needed, and what is also legally required,” said Michelle Strucke, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Humanitarian Agenda, “[which is] safe and unimpeded humanitarian access for humanitarian organizations to provide aid for a population in Gaza that is suffering historic levels of deprivation.”
READ: Outrage as 7 aid workers are killed in Gaza, inquiry ordered
In May, the United Nations World Food Programme said that the pier would risk failing if Israel did not provide the proper conditions to allow for humanitarian assistance.
Israel has repeatedly been blamed for using starvation as a war strategy against civilian populations in Gaza, as well as intentionally targeting aid groups and their workers.
US forces have also used airdrops to distribute aid, but Strucke noted that these efforts combined with those from the pier “were never meant to substitute for scaled, sustainable access to land crossings that provided safe access by humanitarian workers to provide aid.”
“Pursuing them took away decision makers’ time, energy and more than $200 million US taxpayer dollars,” she concluded.
The New Arab and agencies