It took less than two weeks for the Gaza Pier to fail. It was an ill-conceived idea in the first place, but the Biden Administration went charging ahead anyway.

A floating pier assembled by the U.S. military meant to be bringing aid to desperate Palestinians in Gaza sustained damage in rough seas and will have to be towed away for repairs after a part broke off, the Biden administration said Tuesday.

The Washington Post is kindly declaring the pier failed due to a series of “mishaps.” 

The Pentagon said Tuesday that it has suspended the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza via its floating pier after separate mishaps in which four U.S. military vessels were beached, one U.S. service member was critically injured and sections of the structure were ripped free in bad weather.

The damage will require the U.S. military, with Israeli assistance, to disassemble pieces of the pier attached to the Gazan shore, rebuild them in the nearby Israeli port of Ashdod, then transport them back to the Gazan shore and reconnect them, said Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman. That process will take at least a week, temporarily eliminating the pier as an option to deliver humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza as Israel continues its months-long military campaign against the militant group Hamas.

“The pier proved highly valuable in delivering aid to the people of Gaza,” Singh said. “Thus, upon completion of the pier repair and reassembly, the intention is to re-anchor the temporary pier to the coast of Gaza and resume humanitarian aid to the people who need it most.”

“Mishaps” REALLY guys? I’m certainly not a maritime expert, but even I knew this idea was poorly thought out. And it was right from the very start. Did anyone buy into Joe’s assertion that there wouldn’t be any boots on the ground…errr beach? Guess what guys? 

Boots, meet ground.

American crews seen stuck waiting on the beach in Gaza after high seas washed several support vessels ashore.

Biden’s Gaza pier is playing fast and loose with the lives of our service members.

The Pentagon should never have allowed this to go forward. pic.twitter.com/YEabo549JQ

— Mike DiMino (@mpdimino) May 26, 2024

At least two of the ships that were part of the pier build never even made it to Gaza due to mechanical problems. And, as many pointed out, the pier itself AND its location was the most asinine decision ever. 

Furthermore, the Pentagon’s assertion that aid actually made it to Gaza citizens is beyond laughable, given most of them were looted with in yards of the pier. I’d be surprised if even ONE truck made it to its destination with 100% of its cargo still on board!

The pier was designed to provide large amounts of food, medical, and other aid to Gaza every day. Instead, however, the Pentagon’s chief military spokesman, Maj. Gen Patrick Ryder, announced on Tuesday that he does not believe any pier-provided aid has actually reached the Palestinians it was destined for. While hundreds of tons of metric aid have crossed the pier into Gaza over the past few days, everything has been stolen. As Politico’s Lara Seligman reports, the Pentagon is now considering “alternative routes” for aid flows.

Talk about omnishambles: $320 million, months of logistics works, large deployments of finite specialist military units, and heavy diplomatic expenditure have led to a very public mission failure. It’s not a great look for a Biden administration that so loved to claim that the “adults are back in charge.”

And even if trucks did make it to the warehouses, did all the aid make it to the citizens? I’m skeptical. 

This was a leadership failure and the fault lies entirely with Biden and the leaders within the DoD and State Department. Our soldiers were put into harms way so that the Biden Administration could be seen as the grand saviors of the citizens of Gaza while thumbing their noses at Israel. Leading to this sad and entirely predictable result. 

The Landing Craft Mechanized (LCM) “LCM8558” and Modular Warping Tug (MWT) “20” with the U.S. Army’s 7th Transportation Brigade, which were Beached on Saturday near the City of Ashdod in Southern Israel after a Severe Storm, have now been Removed from the Shore by the… pic.twitter.com/lBqR0EA39d

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) May 27, 2024

What’s worse is that our soldiers were definitely sitting ducks because they had to stay with the boats. 

The Pentagon said Tuesday that U.S. soldiers had been stuck on three Army boats beached in Gaza over the weekend after high seas and a storm broke apart an aid pier the service built to deliver food to starving Palestinians.

U.S. Central Command confirmed that the soldiers had been evacuated from the boats by Tuesday after the vessels broke free from their moorings on Saturday, though it was not immediately clear how long the troops were stuck on the shore. The update immediately followed earlier information released by the Pentagon that the soldiers were still aboard the grounded boats.

I’m honestly shocked and pleasantly surprised that Hamas didn’t take pot shots at them. 

This entire debacle has been a cluster of epic proportions. All because Joe wanted to be seen as doing something. 

$320 million taxpayer dollars and counting sank less than two weeks after the floating pier was built. Totally predictable and completely on brand for the Biden Administration. Failure is a feature, not a bug with Joe in charge. 

Feature Photo Credit: Gaza Pier via X as released by CentComm, cropped and modified