United States defense officials have had to pause the construction of a pier facilitating humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza due to high winds and sea swells.
The temporary pause was necessary because the weather conditions were making it unsafe for soldiers to work on the surface of the partially constructed pier, US Central Command said in a statement.
Construction on the pier began last week.
Construction has now moved to the Port of Ashdod, one of Israel’s three main cargo ports north of Gaza, CENTCOM said. Assembly will continue there, and the system will move back to its intended location when conditions improve.
As many as 1,000 US troops will be involved in the construction of the pier system known as Joint Logistics Over the Shore, or JLOTS, which — when finished and fully operational — could provide as many as 150 trucks of aid per day to the starving population in Gaza.
US officials previously hoped the JLOTS system would be fully built by Friday.
Once the pier system is up and running, a massive container ship called the Sagamore will be the first vessel to begin ferrying humanitarian aid from Cyprus to the pier.
The Sagamore is over 600 feet long, or nearly the length of two football fields.
Humanitarian aid is desperately needed in Gaza, where a tight Israeli siege has left many of the enclave’s 2.2 million people facing catastrophic levels of hunger.
