JERUSALEM –
A U.S. Navy ship and several Army vessels involved in a U.S.-led effort to bring more aid to the besieged Gaza Strip are off the coast of the enclave and are building a floating platform for the operation that, according to the Pentagon, it will cost at least 320 million dollars. .
Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters that the cost is a rough estimate of the project and includes transportation of equipment and dock sections from the United States to the Gaza coast, as well as construction operations and aid delivery. .
Satellite photographs analyzed by The Associated Press on Tuesday show the USNS Roy P. Benavidez about 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) from the port on the coast, where the Israeli military is building the project’s operations base. USAV Gen. Frank S. Besson Jr., an Army logistics ship, and several other Army ships are with the Benavidez and working on building what the military calls the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore system, or JLOTS .
Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC on Sunday and Monday showed pieces of the floating dock in the Mediterranean Sea, next to the Benavidez. The ship’s measurements match the known characteristics of the Benavidez, a Bob Hope-class vehicle cargo ship operated by the Military Sealift Command.
A U.S. military official confirmed late last week that the Benavidez had begun construction and was far enough offshore to ensure troops building the platform would be safe. Singh said Monday that next will be construction of the causeway, which will then be anchored to the beach.
The U.S. Army Central Command posted images of the floating dock construction online early Tuesday, following the AP’s release of satellite photographs.
“The pier will support USAID and its humanitarian partners to receive and deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza,” the statement on the X social platform said.
American and Israeli officials have said they hope to have the floating dock in place, the causeway attached to the shore and operations underway by early May. The Pentagon said Monday that the operation will cost at least $320 million. The cost was first reported by Reuters.
Under the US military’s plan, the aid will be loaded onto commercial ships in Cyprus to sail to the floating platform currently being built off Gaza. The pallets will be loaded onto trucks, which will in turn be loaded onto smaller ships that will travel to a two-lane floating metal roadway. The Israel Defense Forces will link the 550-meter (1,800-foot) causeway to the coast.
The U.S. military official said a U.S. Army engineering unit has teamed up with an Israeli military engineering unit in recent weeks to practice installing the causeway, training on an Israeli beach just up the coast.
The new port is located southwest of Gaza City and slightly north of a highway dividing Gaza that the Israeli army built during the current war against Hamas. The area was the most populated in the territory before the Israeli ground offensive arrived and pushed more than a million people south towards the city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt.
There are now Israeli military positions on both sides of the port, which had initially been built – as part of an effort led by World Central Kitchen – from the rubble of buildings razed by Israel. That effort was halted after an Israeli airstrike killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers on April 1 while they were traveling in clearly marked vehicles on an Israeli-sanctioned delivery mission. The organization says it is resuming its work in Gaza.
Aid has been slow to reach Gaza, with long lines of trucks waiting for Israeli inspections. The United States and other nations have also used airdrops to send food to Gaza. The U.S. military official said deliveries on the sea route will initially total about 90 trucks a day and could quickly increase to about 150 trucks a day.
Aid organizations have said several hundred such trucks are needed to enter Gaza each day.
In the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and another 250 taken hostage, Israel cut off or severely restricted the entry of food, water, medicine, electricity and other aid to the Gaza Strip. . Under pressure from the United States and others, Israel says the situation is improving, although United Nations agencies have said much more aid needs to arrive.
Gaza, a little more than twice the size of the city of Washington and home to 2.3 million people, has found itself on the brink of famine. More than 34,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza since fighting began, local health authorities say.
On Sunday, Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the amount of aid reaching Gaza would continue to increase.
“This temporary dock will provide a ship-to-shore distribution system that will further increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” he said in a statement.
However, senior Hamas political official Khalil al-Hayya told the AP last week that the group would consider Israeli forces – or forces from any other country – stationed next to the pier to protect it as “an occupation force.” and aggression.” and that the militant group would resist.
On Wednesday, a mortar attack targeted the port site, although no one was injured.
Associated Press writers Tara Copp and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.