Aid pier off Gaza repaired, shipments to return soon
After being down for almost two weeks, the temporary pier system has once again been reattached to a beach in Gaza, Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, told reporters Friday.
"We expect to resume delivery of humanitarian assistance from the sea in the coming days,” Cooper said.
The reattachment to the beach was done by Israeli Defense Force engineers, just as was done the first time when the pier went into operation in mid-May.
During its one week of operations, 1,000 metric tons of aid equal to more than 2 million pounds came into Gaza via the pier, accounting for about 30% of all aid delivered to Gaza that week. With the re-establishment of JLOTS it will become the third route for aid into Gaza right now.
“Given its proven success, we expect to increase the volume of humanitarian assistance provided through the pier over the previous levels,” said Cooper. “We anticipate that our goal will be to deliver 500,000 pounds over the beach initially and then ramp that up soon thereafter. So essentially, essentially every day a million pounds over every two-day period.”
Aid will begin flowing shortly but for now weather conditions are being evaluated to make sure they are appropriate and everything is working properly before aid deliveries are resumed.
-ABC News’ Luis Martinez