The U.S. military’s cost estimate to build a pier off Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid has risen to $320 million, a U.S. defense official and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The figure, which has not been previously reported, illustrates the massive scale of a construction effort that the Pentagon has said involves about 1,000 U.S. service members, mostly from the Army and Navy.
Still, the cost has roughly doubled from initial estimates earlier this year, according to a person familiar with the matter.
“The cost has not just risen. It has exploded,” Senator Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Democratic-led Senate Armed Services Committee, told Reuters, when asked about the costs.
I’m aware of that. What I’m not aware of is how a pier helps. Israel has not conducted strikes in Egypt, or in Israel, so Israeli strikes are not a reason to have aid avoid either of those countries. The Israeli strikes have hit aid groups traveling within Gaza. It doesn’t matter if aid gets to gaza at a land border, or an sea border. It still needs to be transported within Gaza, so it still has all of the same problems.
Israel controls the land borders, yes even the one at Egypt, and they’re not allowing sufficient aid trucks through. The sea pier bypasses that chokepoint. Plus after we’ve built it the United Nations and other countries can also use it to deliver aid outside of Israel’s control. It could also be used as a way out that neither Egypt nor Israel can block off.
That pier represents a lot more than just a few trucks of food from the United States.
Israel will also control the pier. The US is operating in close coordination with Israel, and of the 2, Israel is the only one who will have boots on the ground. The IDF already surrounds the pier. All aid flowing through the pier needs to be inspected by Israel before departing from Cyprus, then will need to pass through another set of Israeli checkpoints after being unloaded in Gaza before being distributed.
Hmmm, that’s not ideal. I retract my previous comment.
If Israel makes military targets of the US Navy then that’s going to be real “fuck around and find out” territory. Helping from afar was inadequate, so now we’re going to be helping in person.
The last time Israel attacked a US Navy ship “by mistake”, they paid a few million in reparations in total, facing no retaliation. Let’s see if that changes.