How the US Military is Building a Floating Dock for Urgently Needed Aid to Gaza

Even before President Joe Biden announced in his State of the Union address the plans for providing aid to Gaza by sea, the Army’s 7th Transportation Brigade and other units were scrambling to pull equipment together.
They received their orders before the speech: Build a floating dock off the Gaza coast to provide food and other desperately needed assistance to residents of Gaza. The aid is needed because Israel has sharply restricted land routes into Gaza, slowing the flow of aid to a trickle, The Associated Press said.
It’s a complex operation, involving as many as 1,000 US troops, and it won’t happen overnight. Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters it will take weeks for this to come together. Some officials say it will take about two months. And beyond the logistical challenges, the operation will depend on Israel’s cooperation, which isn’t assured.
A look at what’s known about the operation.
WHY BUILD A FLOATING PIER? In the five months since the Hamas group attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage, Israel's military has battered the territory, killing more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The result of the Israel-Hamas war is a devastating humanitarian catastrophe.
The UN says virtually all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are struggling to find food, and more than a half-million currently face starvation. Many people have been reduced to eating animal fodder to survive.
Getting in food, medical supplies and other aid has been difficult, if not impossible at times, due to the ongoing hostilities and struggles to coordinate with the Israeli military, which has blocked routes and slowed deliveries due to inspections.
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid have to drive from the Rafah crossing with Egypt or the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel, both on the southern edge of Gaza, through the conflict zone to reach the largely cut-off areas in the north.
It's been frustrating for the Biden administration as its efforts to step up aid to Gaza have been impeded by the obstacles posed by Israel, its close ally.
Last week, the US began airdrops of aid for Gaza. But that can provide only a limited amount of aid and may not reach those who need it.
In his address Thursday, Biden directed the military to construct a temporary pier on Gaza's coast "that can receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters.”
Biden said the pier will “enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day.”
ASSEMBLED LIKE LEGOS According to defense officials, the 7th Transportation Brigade based at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia is already starting to pull together what's called the Joint Logistics Over The Shore (JLOTS) equipment and watercraft.
It's like a huge LEGO system — an array of 40-foot-long (12-meter-long) pieces of steel that can be locked together to form a pier and causeway. The causeway would be up to 1,800 feet (nearly 550 meters) long and two lanes wide.
And in the coming days, US troops will begin loading the equipment onto a large Military Sealift Command vessel. The equipment will include the steel pieces and smaller tug vessels that can help move things into place.
That loading isn't likely to start until sometime next week, and once done the ship will set off across the Atlantic Ocean with members of the 7th Transportation Brigade aboard. A number of other military units from the US and abroad will also be participating in the mission.
Ryder said the troops will build an offshore pier where large ships can offload food and supplies. Then smaller military vessels will transport that aid from the floating pier to the temporary causeway that will be driven into the ground at the shoreline.
Biden said Thursday that there will be no US forces on the ground in Gaza for the mission, which will likely involve other allies, contractors and aid agencies.
WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES? A key question will be what Israel is prepared to do to support the aid delivery effort.
The US airdrops have been an unusual workaround by the Biden administration, which for months has appealed to Israel to increase the delivery of aid to Gaza and provide access and protection for trucks carrying the goods.
According to Biden, the Israeli government will maintain security at the pier and protect it from any attacks by Hamas. And there may also be a need for crowd control, in case residents try to storm the pier to get the desperately needed food.
While officials said they don't likely need security on the sea route to Israel there will be a requirement for allies and private ships to deliver the aid along the maritime corridor.
It is also unclear who will be unloading the aid at the dock and moving it to shore.
WHAT ARE OTHER NATIONS AID GROUPS DOING? Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides offered the use of his country’s port in Larnaca months ago for a possible sea route for aid deliveries to Gaza, a 230-mile (370-kilometer) journey. Cyprus invited authorities from Israel, the US and other European countries to join Cypriot agents in vetting all shipments so nothing could be used by Hamas against Israel. The offer received strong interest from the Americans, Europeans and others, and extended planning followed.
The European Commission said Friday that a ship bearing humanitarian aid was preparing to leave Cyprus and head for Gaza.
The vessel belonging to Spain’s Open Arms aid group will make a pilot voyage to test the maritime corridor in the coming days. The ship has been waiting at Larnaca for permission to deliver food aid from World Central Kitchen, a US charity founded by celebrity chef José Andrés.
World Central Kitchen prepared the boat in Cyprus with 200 tons of rice, flour and proteins that will soon be ready to leave for Gaza, and an additional 500 tons of aid is in Cyprus and ready to follow, spokeswoman Chloe Mata Crane said in a statement.

Türkiye’s foreign minister said after meeting Syria's de facto leader in Damascus on Sunday that there was no room for Kurdish militants in Syria's future, calling for the YPG militia to disband.
Türkiye regards the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who have fought an insurgency against the Turkish state for 40 years and are deemed terrorists by Ankara, Washington and the European Union.
Sunday's visit to Damascus by Hakan Fidan, the first foreign minister to visit Damascus since Bashar al-Assad's overthrow two weeks ago, came amid hostilities in northeast Syria between Turkish-backed Syrian fighters and the YPG, which spearheads the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the northeast.
Speaking alongside Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, Fidan said he had discussed the YPG presence with the new Syrian administration and believed Damascus would take steps to ensure Syria's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
"In the coming period, the YPG must come to a point where it is no longer a threat to Syria's national unity," Fidan said, adding the YPG should disband.
The SDF played a key role defeating ISIS militants in 2014-2017 with US air support, and still guards ISIS fighters in prison camps. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that the group would try to re-establish capabilities in this period.
Fidan said the international community was "turning a blind eye" to the "illegality" of the SDF and YPG's actions in Syria, but added that he believed US President-elect Donald Trump would take a different approach.
He said the new Syrian administration had told him during their talks that they could manage the ISIS prison camps, if needed.
In a Reuters interview on Thursday, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi acknowledged the presence of PKK fighters in Syria for the first time, saying they had helped battle ISIS and would return home if a total ceasefire was agreed with Türkiye. He denied any organizational ties with the PKK.
The SDF has been on the back foot since Assad's fall, with the threat of advances from Ankara and Türkiye-backed groups as it looks to preserve political gains made in the last 13 years, and with Syria's new rulers being friendly to Ankara.
Earlier, Türkiye's defense minister said Ankara believed Syria's new leadership, including the Syrian National Army (SNA) armed group which Ankara backs, will drive YPG fighters from all of the territory they occupy in the northeast.
Ankara, alongside Syrian allies, has mounted several cross-border offensives against the Kurdish faction in northern Syria and controls swathes of Syrian territory along the border, while repeatedly demanding that its NATO ally Washington halt support for the Kurdish fighters.
Ankara had for years backed opposition groups looking to oust Assad and welcomed the end of his family's brutal five-decade rule after a 13-year civil war. Türkiye also hosts millions of Syrian migrants it hopes will start returning home after Assad's fall, and has vowed to help rebuild Syria.
Fidan said all international sanctions imposed against Assad must be lifted as soon as possible to help Syria start rebuilding, offering Ankara's assistance on matters such as infrastructure development.
Sharaa told Sunday's press conference his administration would announce the new structure of the defense ministry and military within days.

How the US Military is Building a Floating Dock for Urgently Needed Aid to Gaza