The rise and fall of the US-built floating Gaza pier - analysis

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke to Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant this week. “Secretary Austin told Minister Gallant that the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) temporary pier will soon cease operations,” the US Department of Defense noted in a statement. Thus ends the four-month saga of the floating Gaza pier.

The idea was rushed into action following the Gaza aid stampede in late February in which dozens of Gazans were killed trying to get food from aid trucks that had reached northern Gaza. The images from the disaster spurred action in Washington. It was clear that, after months of war, northern Gaza was on the brink of a possible humanitarian disaster. While a million people had evacuated northern Gaza, there were still several hundred thousand remaining.

The pier was supposed to serve the purpose of enabling food to be brought by sea to Gaza. Because it would be attached to the shore in an area Israel controlled, Hamas would not be able to divert the food to its own needs, as it was doing by controlling the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. For Israel, the pier made initial sense because it would alleviate pressure regarding Israel’s actions in northern Gaza and also provide a conduit for food to arrive if and when the IDF invaded Rafah.

The IDF and its role in the Gaza floating pier

The floating pier is a capability that the IDF possesses and one that the US Army has practiced with in the past. However, it was not a means to an end that could be deployed quickly. There were other options for how to supply people in need of humanitarian assistance. The most obvious option was to truck aid from the port in Ashdod to Gaza.

Instead, US President Joe Biden tasked his army with finding a quick-fix solution. The US Army’s 7th Transportation Brigade in the Virginian city of Newport News went to work.

By March 9, the US Army Besson-class vessel (USAV) General Frank S. (LSV-1) from the 7th Transportation Brigade, 3rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command, was preparing to depart from Joint Base Langley-Eustis to head to the Mediterranean.

It would later be joined by other vessels. The ships included the USAV James A. Loux, the USAV Monterrey, the USAV Matamoros, and the USAV Wilson Wharf. They bid goodbye to the shores of Virginia and headed out to sea, towards Bermuda, and then sailed across the Atlantic.

The small armada took a month to reach the Mediterranean, by which time one ship had been left behind in the Canary Islands and another that had departed had to turn back. Four ships arrived at Crete’s Naval Base in Souda Bay in mid-April. Eventually, General Frank S., the Matamoros, the Loux, and the Monterrey continued on toward the coast of Gaza.

In early May, the pier was assembled off the shore of Gaza, and part of it was attached to the shore. This coincided with the IDF’s ground operation in Rafah, which began on May 7 after Hamas launched rockets at IDF troops near the Kerem Shalom crossing.

By mid-May, everything was working, and the pier could receive aid. The aid was arriving in the wake of a disaster that unfolded not far from where the pier was initially attached. On April 1, the IDF killed seven relief workers from World Central Kitchen who had been moving emergency supplies from a temporary landing that the IDF had built in April, not far from the area destined for the pier. This foreshadowed more problems to come.

The IDF prepared for the pier in April by clearing a 67-acre site near the shore in Gaza. Concrete walls were put in place and the site was made ready to house aid that would then be trucked inland. When the pier was put in place on May 16, it only functioned for less than ten days before high seas forced it to be towed to Ashdod. In the process, several parts of the pier, technically a tug portion of it, came loose, and one of them grounded on a beach in Ashdod.

The US had to send a landing craft (LCM 8558) to pull the piece off the shore and then LCM became grounded. The Matamoros then had to tow the pieces off the shore.

Although the pier was re-attached in June, it faced scrutiny following an Israeli raid to rescue the hostages Noa Argamani, Shlomi Ziv, Almog Meir Jan, and Andrey Kozlov. Anti-Israel extremists claimed that the pier was somehow linked to the rescue, which it was not. In the end, the pier had pleased no one. Some thought that the Biden administration had ordered it built to get support from voters in the US. It was mocked for costing more than $200 million and potentially putting 1,000 American military personnel in harm’s way. It also did not deliver very much aid, despite being in place, off and on, for almost two months.

By the time the pier was operational in May, Israel had shifted its policies in northern Gaza, opening a new crossing called Erez West and also moving to reopen the Erez crossing and it was transporting trucks via the Netzarim corridor as well. When the US informed Israel that it would end the pier project, Israel said aid would flow through Pier 28 in Ashdod instead.

The end result of the floating pier project is likely a study of good intentions gone awry. It took a lot of time to put it in place and it was ineffective. Easier options, such as moving ships from Cyprus to Ashdod and offloading aid onto trucks, made more sense.

A floating pier like this might work in a place where there are no other alternatives. Critics of the pier came from all sides of the American political spectrum. Pro-Palestinian voices condemned it, as did critics of the Biden administration on the Right.

The US may have learned from this initiative and the US Army and the Pentagon can also study how the pier was used. The fact that it did not work in any sea state higher than one meter shows how vulnerable it is. The coast of Gaza is not particularly complex in terms of currents, wind, and waves. Yet it had trouble remaining there for more than a week at a time.