Journalist says U.S. temporary aid pier was just a distraction

Khan Younis, June 30 (RHC)-- A Palestinian-Canadian journalist, Mansour Shouman, says that even after the $230 million U.S. temporary aid pier was working, there were only about 29 trucks allowed into the Israeli military-controlled zone, so much of the aid is still on the beach.

Mansour Shouman said: “100 percent of the focus should have been on the land borders opening,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that the pier and efforts to airdrop aid were “just a distraction.”  “We need real change, we need an immediate ceasefire, we need permanent opening of the different land borders to the aid, and we need security for the people of Gaza as soon as possible.”

The $230 million, problem-prone Gaza aid pier that has been removed once again from the Palestinian territory’s coastline due to poor weather conditions and as the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) investigates its effectiveness.

The pier’s removal on Friday “due to high seas” marks the third time it has been detached from the shore since its initial installation in mid-May, and its facilitation of a modest 8,800 tonnes of aid reaching Gaza since then.

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told journalists on Friday the pier has been towed back to Ashdod in Israel, and she did not have a date for the pier’s reinstallation.

The Defense Department’s Office of the Inspector General and USAID have launched “coordinated, independent oversight projects” on the delivery and distribution of US humanitarian aid via the “Gaza maritime corridor,” the Pentagon said in a statement on Thursday.

The “review will assess the effectiveness of DoD’s efforts to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza through the maritime corridor,” the statement added.

International aid groups had warned before its launch that the U.S pier would be an ineffective way to deliver aid to Gaza, and that it could not substitute for opening land routes for aid, which had been blocked or severely restricted by Israeli military forces.