(Washington) The temporary pier built on the shores of Gaza by the US military to increase the aid that can be delivered to the Palestinian territory is expected to cost the United States some $320 million, the Pentagon said Monday.
“That’s our rough estimate at the moment, about $320 million,” U.S. Department of Defense deputy spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters.
The spokeswoman said the sum represented “the initial cost for the temporary jetty”, construction of which began last week.
Faced with Israel’s blockages regarding the delivery of humanitarian aid by land in a Gaza Strip hit by a humanitarian disaster, Joe Biden announced at the beginning of March the establishment of an artificial port.
The humanitarian aid will first arrive in Cyprus, where it will be subject to verification, a senior American military official said Thursday.
It will then be transferred to a floating platform off the coast of Gaza and then to the pier where it will be taken care of by humanitarian partners and transported into the territory by trucks.
On Sunday, the White House indicated that the pier should allow more humanitarian aid to be delivered to Gaza within “two to three weeks”. But this transport by sea cannot replace land convoys, underlined John Kirby, spokesperson for the National Security Council.
The war in Gaza was triggered after the unprecedented attack by Palestinian Hamas on October 7 on Israeli soil, which resulted in the death of 1,170 people, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli data.
Israel’s vast military operation in response has caused a humanitarian catastrophe and left more than 34,488 dead in the Gaza Strip, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas health ministry.