US-built pier in Gaza will need to be removed and repaired after damage from rough seas

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon says the U.S.-built temporary pier taking humanitarian aid to starving Palestinians has been damaged in rough seas and weather and will be removed from the coast of Gaza to be repaired.

Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters Tuesday that over the next two days the pier will be pulled out and sent to the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, where U.S. Central Command will repair it. She says the fixes will take “at least over a week” and then the pier will need to be anchored back into the beach in Gaza.

The pier is one of the few ways that food, water and other supplies are getting to Palestinians who the U.N. says are on the brink of famine amid the nearly eight-month-old Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. built temporary pier that had been used to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza was damaged by rough seas and has temporarily suspended operations, three U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The pier will be repaired, but it was not immediately clear how long that will take, a fourth U.S. official told the AP.

The Joint Logistics Over The Shore, or JLOTS, pier only began operations in the past two weeks and had provided an additional way to get critically needed food to Gaza.

The setback is the latest for the $320 million pier, which has already had three U.S. service member injuries and had four if its vessels beached due to heavy seas. Deliveries also were halted for two days last week after crowds rushed aid trucks coming from the pier and one Palestinian man was shot dead. The U.S. military worked with the U.N. and Israeli officials to select safer alternate routes for trucks, the Pentagon