The US military-built pier to carry humanitarian aid to Gaza will be dismantled and brought home, ending a mission that has been fraught with repeated weather and security problems that limited how much food and other supplies could get to starving Palestinians.
As the US military stepped away from the sea route for humanitarian aid on Wednesday, questions swirled about Israel's new plan to use the port at Ashdod as a substitute. There are few details on how it will work and lingering concerns about whether aid groups will have enough viable land crossings to get assistance into the territory besieged by war between Israel and Hamas.
Critics call the pier a USD 230 million boondoggle that failed to bring in the level of aid needed to stem a looming famine. The US military, however, has maintained that it served as the best hope as aid only trickled in during a critical time of near-famine in Gaza and that it got close to 20 million pounds (9 million kilograms) of desperately needed .
