The US is on track to begin delivering critical humanitarian aid to Gaza through a maritime corridor in early May and more details of the plan have been worked out, officials said.
A senior military official said in a conference call that construction and assembly of the Mediterranean Sea pier began Thursday off the coast of Gaza.
Once completed, the pier will initially have the capacity to transport 90 trucks per day, but is expected to eventually reach 150 trucks per day.
About 1,000 U.S. Army and Navy soldiers and sailors will handle the dockside mission, called the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) operation, the official added.
The US military will live on a British ship called Cardigan Bay and the official stressed that there will be no American soldiers on land in Gaza. The military is also coordinating closely with Israel to create a robust security plan to ensure safety at the pier, although the head of US Central Command must sign off on the mission before it can proceed.
“We believe we have developed a comprehensive and integrated security plan with the Israel Defense Forces to address the protection of American troops and everything is in place: the people, the procedures, the ships and the coordination protocols,” the official said.
The mission will also be supported by the United States Agency for International Development, the World Food Program and the United Nations, and several international aid groups.
A US administration official said the pier was critical because Gaza suffers a serious humanitarian crisis.
“Construction of the maritime corridor and JLOTS is so critical to getting additional assistance at a time when we need to scale everything up,” said the official. “So this is a humanitarian initiative with a humanitarian purpose.”
Officials also outlined a more detailed version of the plan for the first time. The humanitarian aid will arrive on pallets from the island of Cyprus to a large floating dock kilometers off the coast of Gaza, after being transported by commercial ships.
At the pier, smaller Army boats called logistics support vessels, which can carry up to 20 trucks with one attachment, will transport the cargo to a pier anchored off the coast of Gaza. There, the trucks will leave the dock and enter Gaza for distribution in a safe area.
“These trucks repeat the process over and over again in a closed circuit,” said the senior military officer.
The US military has two command and control cells based in Cyprus and Israel that will help coordinate the mission, the official added.
President Biden first announced the construction of a pier off the coast of Gaza in March, as the humanitarian situation continued to deteriorate along the coast.
The United Nations has warned of an imminent famine unless more aid reaches Gaza, where more than 34,000 Palestinians have died as Israel wages war against the militant group Hamas.
The situation is expected to worsen significantly when Israel launches an invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering.
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