President Joe Biden's signature effort to provide aid to the Palestinians has quickly unraveled and turned into an operational nightmare, raising the possibility that the project will be scrapped much sooner than expected.

Biden said in his State of the Union address in March: Direct The Palestinian Authority has asked the U.S. military to build a floating pier system to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip via the Mediterranean Sea, promising that it would “enable a significant increase in humanitarian assistance” to the Palestinians. But since it became operational in May, a series of operational and logistical problems have plagued the pier, putting U.S. troops at risk and hindering the delivery of aid to the Gaza Strip. (Related: Biden administration reportedly despairs of Israel-Hamas ceasefire happening anytime soon as 2024 elections loom)

Moreover, the pier was never built to withstand the harsh Mediterranean waters, so the project was doomed from the start. according to That's according to government officials and aid workers who spoke to The Wall Street Journal.The situation at the pier is so bad that U.S. officials have privately warned aid groups in Gaza that the Biden administration will halt operations entirely in the coming weeks, much sooner than an expected target of September, The New York Times reported. report Tuesday.

Biden's exclusive video of the shabby Gaza dock (before it was smashed to pieces): pic.twitter.com/Xqyqjt7Ru4

— Christina Wong 🇺🇸 (@kristina_wong) June 14, 2024

“and [the Biden administration]”The problem is they can't shoot straight. They continue to take a 'prepare, shoot, and aim' approach to these types of problems,” Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, told DCNF. “Almost everything the Biden administration has been doing in the Middle East recently has lacked strategic coherence.”

According to the WSJ, Biden informed the Pentagon about the pier just days before he announced it in his State of the Union address in March, and defense officials are rushing to mobilize troops for the task. army In late April, they quickly began construction of a system of a floating dock off Gaza and a second causeway pier moored to the exclave's coast, and began delivering aid. operation Mid May.

But the $230 million pier won't be able to operate above “sea state 3” levels, which corresponds to medium or short waves, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Mediterranean Sea often experiences sea state 4, which has higher waves and wind speeds.

The pier collapsed due to bad weather and rough waves. slow It was completed in May, and within two weeks of being operational, it was afloat in the Mediterranean Sea, where the military had to tow the pier north for repairs, which were completed on 1 November.

Operations resumed on June 8 but were limited two days later when the World Food Programme, the main organisation distributing local aid in the Gaza Strip, announced that it would no longer deliver supplies from the pier, citing security concerns. Crowds of hungry civilians also attacked trucks carrying aid from the pier on May 20, just days after it had opened.

“There was no mechanism for how this aid would get from the pier to its intended recipients,” David Dowd, a senior fellow for Middle East affairs at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told DCNF. “Maybe humanitarian organizations could receive it, but would they have the capacity to distribute it? That wasn't clearly outlined to me.”

TOP SHOT – Palestinians rush trucks transporting international humanitarian aid from the US-built Trident Pier near Nuseira in the central Gaza Strip on May 18, 2024, as the conflict between Israel and the militant group Hamas continues. (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)

The U.S. military was forced to close the pier again on June 15 due to rough seas, and reopened it on June 20. The pier was built a month ago, but as of June 18, it had only been in operation for 10 days. (Related: KJP hits back at Netanyahu protests, requests military aid)

The Biden administration initially expected the closure to last until September, but defense officials have reportedly privately warned aid groups on the ground in Gaza that the pier would close permanently in the coming weeks, according to The New York Times. A Defense Department official told DCNF that the pier was never intended to be permanently closed, but that an exact date for its closure has not been determined.

“We always [pier system] “This is a temporary and additional measure to get aid to the people of Gaza, but there has been no instruction yet to end the mission or set a completion date for it,” the official said.

In addition to the operational challenges facing the pier, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin acknowledged in late April that there was also a fundamental risk that the terrorist organization Hamas would open fire on U.S. troops working on the floating pier, just two miles from the Gaza coast. On April 24, just weeks before U.S. forces were to build the pier, “various terrorist organizations” fired mortars at the proposed pier site.

WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 17: John Kirby, Assistant to the President for National Security Communications, speaks to reporters during a regular press briefing in the Brady Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, DC on May 17, 2024. Kirby updated reporters on humanitarian aid being delivered to the Gaza Strip using floating docks and piers constructed by the U.S. military. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“It was not a sound plan from the beginning – there were accidents, logistical obstacles, danger to soldiers – and all of these problems became reality,” Michael DiMino, a senior fellow at Defense Priorities and a former CIA officer, previously told DCNF, pointing to alternative, more effective ways of getting aid to Gaza. “I don't think there should be any effort to continue this.”

The pier faces another problem: Even if it were fully operational, it would only be able to deliver a fraction of the aid needed to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Said I was aiming for 90-150 in late May. A truckload The paper said that $10 million worth of aid is meant to be shipped from the dock every day, but humanitarian groups have reported that only around seven truckloads of supplies are being delivered from the dock each day. (Related story: Biden cuts off his supporters so anti-Israel protesters can raise their voices)

A UN spokesman told the DCNF in May that between 300 and 500 truckloads of aid were needed in Gaza every day.

“Supplies from the wharf are not flowing to the Palestinians, and never have been,” said Steven Semler, a national security expert at the Quincy Institute for Responsible National Strategy. I have written In an essay dated June 12th.

UNSPECIFIED – May 16: (Editor's note: This handout image was provided by a third party organization and may not comply with Getty Images' editorial policy.) U.S. Army Soldiers with the 7th Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary), U.S. Navy Sailors with the 1st Amphibious Construction Battalion, and the Israel Defense Forces install a Trident pier on the Gaza coast, May 16, 2024. (Photo credit: U.S. Central Command via Getty Images)

Department of Defense spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder Said Reporters reported on Thursday that aid deliveries had resumed from the docks, but no aid has been distributed. The World Food Programme has still suspended deliveries from the docks due to security concerns on the ground in Gaza.

An analysis by Responsible Statecraft last week found that aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip, including truck deliveries through the border crossing and airdrops, have actually fallen since the construction of the pier: More than 93,000 pallets of aid were sent to the Gaza Strip in April, falling to around 29,000 pallets in May.

Of the 29,000 pallets of aid delivered in May, fewer than 2,000 came dockside, according to Responsible Statecraft.

“I don't think this was unforeseen,” Daoud told DCNF about the pier's problems, deficiencies and failure to effectively deliver aid to Gaza. “When I heard this announcement, my knee-jerk reaction was that it was going to be a bad outcome.”

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