If Hamas can exercise political control of Gaza by controlling the distribution of humanitarian aid, donors should be striving to make sure food and other supplies stay out of its hands. Unfortunately, the U.S.-built artificial pier, installed off the coast of Gaza to streamline the delivery of aid, did the opposite. This subject is now moot since the pier, which cost over $320 million, broke apart last week and is at least temporarily out of use.
Garrett Exner explains the folly of this endeavor, which is perhaps emblematic of American policy failures:
Delivering aid through a single, floating pier is slow, easily interrupted by bad weather, and, without security on the ground, subject to regular Hamas theft or UNRWA misuse. If the goal of the administration is to deliver as much aid as possible in the shortest timeline, an existing port facility with overland routes to Gaza would be faster, cheaper, and safer for U.S. forces.
The administration’s very building of the pier implies that Israel is withholding aid from Gaza and cannot be trusted to escort American aid into the conflict zone. This plays into fabricated narratives broadcast by Israel’s enemies about attempts deliberately to starve Gazan civilians.
Like the ineffectual aid airdrops before it, the pier has no security mechanism to protect aid once it arrives in Gaza. As of May 25, nearly all the aid delivered had been looted by terrorist organizations; the Department of Defense admitted that none of the aid has reached the Palestinian people, and what little does is often sold to them by terrorists at exorbitant prices.
This has caused the administration to begin quietly defying Congress by resuming aid delivery to UNRWA, the UN entity in Gaza, which was paused after it was revealed that hundreds of UNRWA workers participated in the massacres of October 7th.
More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, U.S. Foreign policy