The U.S. military has started moving a pier towards the Gaza coast, a U.S. official said on Wednesday, one of the last steps before the launch of a maritime port promised by President Joe Biden to speed the flow of humanitarian aid to Palestinians.
The U.S. military opted to pre-assemble the maritime pier at Israeli port of Ashdod earlier this month due to weather conditions at the Gaza site where it will now be installed.
Officials hope the pier can be anchored to the coast of Gaza and aid can start flowing in the coming days.
“Earlier today, components of the temporary pier … along with military vessels involved in its construction, began moving from the Port of Ashdod towards Gaza, where it will be anchored to the beach to assist in the delivery of international humanitarian aid,” a U.S. official said.
It says built in 13 hours but usable for traffic in 4 weeks, and I am trying to parse that.
There was a temporary pontoon bridge then, and then a more permanent bridge for traffic built? I ask because pictures I initially saw were quite larger than the initial bridge, which made me question the within a day time.
I suppose it depends if the Gaza pier is closer to the first than the second. While the Gaza pier is described as temporary, it seems built to handle high and continuous cargo traffic. I imagine constructing such a platform which is also seaworthy enough to be towed requires more tasks than a single lane pontoon bridge. I also wonder how much of the Gaza pier had to be adapted and customized compared to pre-fabricated bridge segments.
Given the difference in type of work, and prefabricated material I wonder if 4 weeks is reasonable or not still. An example of similar maritime construction would be useful I suppose.
Open for traffic as in “now not just for the military, here you go civilians, have at it, no need to go around anymore”.
It is written pretty weirdly but that’s what I’d say, because those portable bridges definitely don’t take several weeks to set up.
The point I think he and I are making is that if it was just about the capability of building such a bridge at full speed, it would’ve been ready sooner. Instead there’s probably quite a lot of politics going on.
I’m aware of the implication. I’m trying to find out if it’s reasonable. Two military projects completed at different speeds is partially compelling, but then I find it less compelling looking at the differences.
I honestly don’t know if a month to build this project is reasonable or not. I’m poking at reactions to find out.
Considering the distress in Gaza, I think it should’ve been a bit faster. There’s definitely capability for that, especially from someone like the US military.
If this was some completely different sort of situation and US lives were in that sort of danger, I think it would’ve gone up a bit quicker.
A month isn’t unreasonably long, but I believe it could’ve been achieved much faster in dire need, and I think there is very dire need indeed.
Like if the people making the floating pier were under the same amount of motivation as the people who made the Dunkirk evacuation possible (which means pretty much everyone involved, can’t credit a single party for something like that), I think there would already be a pier.
I’m not blaming the US for “taking too long”, I’m just saying I personally believe (and have lots of that belief based on at least some facts) that it could’ve been done faster.