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This Is How the US-Built Pier to Bring Aid to Gaza Worked — Or Not

The image provided by US Central Command, shows US Army soldiers assigned to the 7th Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary), US Navy sailors assigned to Amphibious Construction Battalion 1, and Israel Defense Forces placing the Trident Pier on the coast of Gaza Strip on May 16, 2024. (US Central Command via AP)
The image provided by US Central Command, shows US Army soldiers assigned to the 7th Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary), US Navy sailors assigned to Amphibious Construction Battalion 1, and Israel Defense Forces placing the Trident Pier on the coast of Gaza Strip on May 16, 2024. (US Central Command via AP)
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This Is How the US-Built Pier to Bring Aid to Gaza Worked — Or Not

The image provided by US Central Command, shows US Army soldiers assigned to the 7th Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary), US Navy sailors assigned to Amphibious Construction Battalion 1, and Israel Defense Forces placing the Trident Pier on the coast of Gaza Strip on May 16, 2024. (US Central Command via AP)
The image provided by US Central Command, shows US Army soldiers assigned to the 7th Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary), US Navy sailors assigned to Amphibious Construction Battalion 1, and Israel Defense Forces placing the Trident Pier on the coast of Gaza Strip on May 16, 2024. (US Central Command via AP)

The US military's pier to get humanitarian aid into Gaza has come to an end after a series of problems.

The pier was pulled from the Gaza shore on June 28 due to rough seas, and bad weather prevented troops from reinstalling it. Now, it's being dismantled and brought home.

Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, deputy commander at US Central Command, announced the end of the mission, saying the pier achieved its intended effect. And he said the Israeli port at Ashdod is a more sustainable option for aid delivery and will now be used instead.

Humanitarian groups stopped distributing supplies that arrived by sea on June 9 due to security concerns and never started again. Contractors hired by the World Food Program have removed aid that piled up onshore for distribution to starving Palestinians.

It's been a long and difficult road for the pier, which has been battered by weather and troubled by security problems. It also managed to bring tons of food and other supplies to starving Palestinians. Here's a timeline of the pier:

March: Announcement and prep MARCH 7: President Joe Biden announces his plan for the US military to build a pier during his State of the Union address.

“Tonight, I’m directing the US military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the coast of Gaza that can receive large shipments carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters,” he said.

But even in those first few moments, he noted the pier would increase the amount of humanitarian aid getting into Gaza but that Israel “must do its part” and let more aid in.

MARCH 8: Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon spokesman, tells reporters it will take “up to 60 days” to deploy the forces and build the project.

MARCH 12: Four US Army boats loaded with tons of equipment and steel pier segments leave Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia and head to the Atlantic Ocean for what is expected to be a monthlong voyage to Gaza.

The brigade’s commander, Army Col. Sam Miller, warns that the transit and construction will be heavily dependent on the weather and any high seas they encounter.

LATE MARCH: US Army vessels hit high seas and rough weather as they cross the Atlantic, slowing their pace.

April: Construction and hope APRIL 1: Seven World Central Kitchen aid workers are killed in an Israeli airstrike as they travel in clearly marked vehicles on a delivery mission authorized by Israel.

The strike fuels ongoing worries about security for relief workers and prompts aid agencies to pause delivery of humanitarian assistance in Gaza.

APRIL 19: US officials confirm that the UN World Food Program has agreed to help deliver aid brought to Gaza via the maritime route once construction is done.

APRIL 25: Major construction of the port facility on the shore near Gaza City begins to take shape. The onshore site is where aid from the causeway will be delivered and given to aid agencies.

APRIL 30: Satellite photos show the US Navy ship USNS Roy P. Benavidez and Army vessels working on assembling the pier and causeway about 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) from the port on shore.

May: The pier opens ... then closes MAY 9: The US vessel Sagamore is the first ship loaded with aid to leave Cyprus and head toward Gaza and ultimately the pier. An elaborate security and inspection station has been built in Cyprus to screen the aid coming from a number of countries.

MAY 16: Well past the 60-day target time, the construction and assembly of the pier off the Gaza coast and the causeway attached to the shoreline are finished after more than a week of weather and other delays.

MAY 17: The first trucks carrying aid for the Gaza Strip roll down the newly built pier and into the secure area on shore, where they will be unloaded and the cargo distributed to aid agencies for delivery by truck into Gaza.

May 18: Crowds of desperate Palestinians overrun a convoy of aid trucks coming from the pier, stripping the cargo from 11 of the 16 vehicles before they reach a UN warehouse for distribution.

May 19-20: The first food from the pier — a limited number of high-nutrition biscuits — reaches people in need in central Gaza, according to the World Food Program.

Aid organizations suspend deliveries from the pier for two days while the US works with Israel to open alternate land routes from the pier and improve security.

MAY 24: So far, a bit more than 1,000 metric tons of aid has been delivered to Gaza via the US-built pier, and USAID later says all of it has been distributed within Gaza.

MAY 25: High winds and heavy seas damage the pier and cause four US Army vessels operating there to become beached, injuring three service members, including one who is in critical condition.

Two vessels went aground in Gaza near the base of the pier and two went aground near Ashkelon in Israel.

MAY 28: Large portions of the causeway were pulled from the beach and moved to an Israeli port for repairs. The base of the causeway remains at the Gaza shore.

June: Big crises for the pier JUNE 7: The damaged causeway was rebuilt and reconnected to the beach in Gaza.

JUNE 8: The US military announced that deliveries resumed off the repaired and reinstalled dock.

The same day, Israel rescued four hostages taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attacks in an operation that killed 270 Palestinians.

JUNE 9: World Food Program chief Cindy McCain announced a “pause” in cooperation with the US pier during a TV interview, citing the previous day’s “incident” and the rocketing of two WFP warehouses that injured a staffer.

JUNE 10: WFP said the UN would conduct a security review to assess the safety of its staff in handling aid deliveries from the pier. In the meantime, the US military said it would stockpile aid shipments on a secure beach in Gaza.

Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, said no aspect of the pier or its equipment had been used in Israel's rescue operation. The Pentagon says an area south of the pier was used for the return of the freed hostages back to Israel.

JUNE 14: The pier was detached from the beach in Gaza to prevent damage during rough seas and allow the military to reattach it more quickly later, US officials said.

JUNE 19: The pier was re-anchored in Gaza and more than 656 metric tons, or 1.4 million pounds, of aid was delivered in the hours after it resumed operations, Ryder said.

Aid agencies, however, did not restart their distribution of the aid, so workers have been storing it in the secure area.

JUNE 28: The pier is removed due to weather, and the US is considering not putting it back unless aid begins heading again to Palestinians in need, several US officials said.

July: End of the line JULY 16: Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says Israel will soon replace the US military pier with a dedicated facility for aid delivery called Pier 28 at the port of Ashdod. He did not say when it would begin operating.

JULY 17: The Defense Department formally announces the pier will be dismantled and brought home. Altogether, the military moved nearly 20 million pounds of aid onto the Gaza shore in what officials said was the “largest volume of humanitarian assistance” ever delivered into the Middle East.

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British Researcher Urges Coordinated Int’l Pressure to Prevent Sudan’s Fragmentation

Members of Sudan’s armed forces take part in a military parade on Army Day in Gadaref on August 14, 2024. (AFP)
Members of Sudan’s armed forces take part in a military parade on Army Day in Gadaref on August 14, 2024. (AFP)
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British Researcher Urges Coordinated Int’l Pressure to Prevent Sudan’s Fragmentation

Members of Sudan’s armed forces take part in a military parade on Army Day in Gadaref on August 14, 2024. (AFP)
Members of Sudan’s armed forces take part in a military parade on Army Day in Gadaref on August 14, 2024. (AFP)

Coordinated and high-level political attention is paramount to ending the devastating war in Sudan between Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), according to a British researcher.

As the conflict in Sudan escalates, fears are growing that the country could split into conflicting states under two rival governments.

Rosalind Marsden, a British researcher and diplomat said in a report to the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), that 17 months of war in Sudan have resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians and displaced 10 million people – 2 million into neighboring countries and 8 million internally.

She said the war has created the world’s worst hunger crisis, pushing millions to the brink of a man-made famine.

Meanwhile, a series of international mediation efforts have failed to stop the conflict.

According to Marsden, the latest was a US-mediated attempt to restart a stalled ceasefire process in mid-August, aiming to bring together senior delegations from the warring parties – the SAF and the RSF.

Talks in Geneva were intended to achieve a nationwide cessation of hostilities, allowing humanitarian access to all areas of the country, and a robust monitoring and verification mechanism, she said.

The negotiations were co-hosted by Saudi Arabia and Switzerland, with the United Nations, African Union, Egypt and the UAE present as observers.

Some limited progress was made on humanitarian access to Darfur. The SAF agreed to temporarily reopen the Adre border crossing from Chad, which they had arbitrarily shut in February and the RSF unblocked the Al Dabbah route.

Failure of ceasefire talks

Marsden said the main reason for failure of the ceasefire talks is that both the SAF and RSF are still pursuing military victory.

The SAF refused to send a delegation to Geneva, setting unrealistic preconditions and objecting to the presence of the UAE, which they accuse of arming the RSF.

That meant mediators had to communicate virtually with SAF representatives, while conducting in-person talks with the RSF, she noted.

Marsden said that although the SAF is losing on the battlefield, it doesn’t want to negotiate from a position of weakness and has intensified aerial bombing since Geneva.

Its leaders hope that more advanced weaponry from Iran, China, Russia and elsewhere will turn the tide.

SAF Commander General Abdel Fatah al Burhan is also under pressure to continue the war from hardcore Islamists, particularly those with ties to Ali Karti, Secretary-General of the Sudan Islamic Movement and formerly foreign minister under the regime of Omar al-Bashir.

Islamist brigades provide manpower for the SAF, and Islamist control of Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made the SAF’s diplomatic position hostile to progress, she said.

RSF awaits dry season

The RSF, another creation of the Bashir regime, is also hoping to make further territorial gains once the dry season starts in October, according to Marsden.

They have been more cooperative in international forums, using SAF recalcitrance to pose in a positive light, she said.

During the Geneva talks, they agreed to a code of conduct on the protection of civilians, followed by a directive from their commander, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

But their commitments are severely undermined by their record of atrocities, including ethnically-targeted killing, and expanding attacks on civilians, according to the British researcher.

She said given this stalemate, more pressure is needed on countries fueling the war through military, financial and logistical support to the belligerents.

The recent renewal of the UN Security Council (UNSC) sanctions regime and arms embargo on Darfur, in place since 2005 but never effectively implemented, was a missed opportunity to expand the arms embargo to all of Sudan, given the spread of the conflict and evidence that both warring parties have acquired new weapons from a range of countries.

Robust international action

Marsden said the priority now must be for the UNSC to take more robust action in the face of violations of the existing embargo.

She said sanctions are also needed “against those living in Western democracies who propagate hate speech and call for a continuation of the war.”

At the same time, the US and its partners should continue working with regional actors including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE to try to leverage their influence on the belligerents and persuade them that everyone loses if the war continues.

In this regard, the newly-formed Aligned for Advancing Liefesaving and Peace in Sudan, which includes the US, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, the EU and the African Union could be a significant platform.

The high-level segment of the UN General Assembly will also be an important opportunity to reinforce these messages, she said.

Threat of partition

Marsden said Sudan is facing the real possibility of de facto partition under rival governments and even further fragmentation.

An army general recently vowed that it will hold on to power for another 20 years if it wins, while an RSF victory would see the state become a subsidiary of the Dagalo family business empire, she added.

If Sudan’s democracy-supporting civilians want to change these calculations, they need to unite on a common anti-war platform and make their voices central to shaping future peacebuilding efforts, she urged. International support is crucial to enabling that objective.

This means not bestowing legitimacy on either warring party, but elevating the role of civilians in diplomatic initiatives and pressing for a peaceful transition to a democratic, civilian government across the whole country.

If Africa’s third largest country disintegrates, it would have generational impacts for Sudanese. It would also spread instability to its fragile neighbors, and beyond its 800 km Red Sea coastline, Marsden warned.

Sudan can no longer be ignored amidst other global crises. Coordinated and high-level political attention is paramount to ending this devastating war, she demanded.