$320M for Building Gaza Aid Pier       04/30 06:01

   A U.S. Navy ship and several Army vessels involved in an American-led effort 
to bring more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip are offshore of the enclave and 
building out a floating platform for the operation that the Pentagon has said 
will cost at least $320 million.

   JERUSALEM (AP) -- A U.S. Navy ship and several Army vessels involved in an 
American-led effort to bring more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip are offshore 
of the enclave and building out a floating platform for the operation that the 
Pentagon has said will cost at least $320 million.

   Sabrina Singh, Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters the cost is a rough 
estimate for the project and includes the transportation of the equipment and 
pier sections from the United States to the coast of Gaza, as well as the 
construction and aid delivery operations.

   Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press on Tuesday show the USNS 
Roy P. Benavidez about 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) from the port on shore, where 
the base of operations for the project is being built by the Israeli military. 
The USAV General Frank S. Besson Jr., an Army logistics vessel, and several 
other Army boats are with the Benavidez and working on the construction of what 
the military calls the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, system.

   Satellite images from Sunday and Monday by Planet Labs PBC showed pieces of 
the floating pier in the Mediterranean Sea, alongside the Benavidez. 
Measurements of the vessel match known features 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 that it was far enough off shore to ensure that the 
troops building the platform would be safe. Singh said on Monday that next will 
come the construction of the causeway, which will then be anchored to the beach.

   The U.S. military's Central Command early Tuesday published images of the 
floating pier's construction online, after the AP's publication of the 
satellite photos.

   "The pier will support USAID and humanitarian partners to receive and 
deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza," the statement on the social 
platform X said.

   U.S. and Israeli officials have said they hope to have the floating pier in 
place, the causeway attached to the shore and operations underway by early May. 
The Pentagon said on Monday the operation will cost at least $320 million. The 
cost was first reported by Reuters.

   Under the plan by the U.S. military, aid will be loaded onto commercial 
ships in Cyprus to sail to the floating platform now under construction off 
Gaza. The pallets will be loaded onto trucks, which will be loaded onto smaller 
ships that will travel to a metal, floating two-lane causeway. The 550-meter 
(1,800-foot) causeway will be attached to the shore by the Israeli Defense 
Forces.

   The U.S. military official said an American Army engineering unit has teamed 
with an Israeli military engineering unit in recent weeks to practice the 
installation of the causeway, training on an Israeli beach just up the coast.

   The new port sits southwest of Gaza City and a bit north of a road bisecting 
Gaza that the Israeli military built during the current war against Hamas. The 
area was the territory's most populous before the Israeli ground offensive 
rolled through and pushed more than 1 million people south toward the city of 
Rafah on the border with Egypt.

   Now Israeli military positions are on either side of the port, which 
initially had been built -- as part of an effort led by World Central Kitchen 
-- out of the rubble of buildings leveled by Israel. That effort halted after 
an Israeli airstrike killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers on April 1 
as they traveled in clearly marked vehicles on a delivery mission authorized by 
Israel. The organization says it is resuming its work in Gaza.

   Aid has been slow to get into Gaza, with long backups of trucks awaiting 
Israeli inspections. The U.S. and other nations also have used air drops to 
send food into Gaza. The U.S. military official said deliveries on the sea 
route initially will total about 90 trucks a day and could quickly increase to 
about 150 trucks daily.

   Aid organizations have said several hundred such trucks are needed to enter 
Gaza every day.

   In the aftermath of Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 
people and saw 250 others taken hostage, Israel cut off or heavily restricted 
food, water, medicine, electricity and other aid from entering the Gaza Strip. 
Under pressure from the U.S. and others, Israel says the situation is 
improving, though United Nations agencies have said much more aid needs to 
enter.

   Gaza, slightly 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 been killed in Gaza since the fighting began, local 
health authorities say.

   On Sunday, Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the 
amount of aid going into Gaza would continue to scale up.

   "This temporary pier 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, high-ranking 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 by the pier to guard it as "an occupying force and 
aggression," and that the militant group would resist it.

   On Wednesday, a mortar attack targeted the port site, though no one was hurt.