TEHRAN- Satellite images have shown the construction of a floating United States military port off the Gaza shore in the Mediterranean Sea but questions have been raised over its objectives.

The Pentagon has confirmed media reports that the pier that is being built by the U.S. military near Gaza will cost at least $320 million, which is double the original estimate announced for the project. 

“The cost has not just risen. It has exploded,” Senator Roger Wicker told Reuters. 

“This dangerous effort with marginal benefit will now cost the American taxpayers at least $320 million to operate the pier for only 90 days,” the Republican lawmaker added. 

Around 1,000 U.S. military personnel have been deployed to Gaza’s waters, including from the army and navy, who are working in close coordination with the Israeli army and navy to build the pier that the Pentagon says will be operational in May.

The huge investment has raised question marks on how this costly project will help the man-made starvation across the Gaza Strip.

According to U.S. officials, the pier will handle the equivalent of 90 trucks per day. The supplies will depart from Cyprus, where they will be inspected by the Israeli military.  
Once the aid reaches Gaza, it will undergo another land inspection by the Israeli military, despite being inspected in Cyprus before it reaches the people of Gaza. 

Who will distribute this aid inside Gaza? Who will send it to the north where food and water are needed the most? These are among the many key questions that the White House has declined to provide any answers to.

More importantly, more than 90 aid trucks are being inspected but blocked from entering Gaza. A leaked internal U.S. State Department memo has admitted that Israel rejects aid trucks from entering the enclave in violation of international humanitarian law. 

Essentially, the Israeli occupation forces, who have killed a record number of aid workers numerous times, will be in charge of handling the aid via this questionable project.

The United Nations has been calling on the Israeli occupation regime to allow a significant increase in the number of humanitarian trucks to enter the enclave to avoid famine. 
500 trucks entered the Strip on a daily basis before the war. UN officials say the daily figures needed now vastly exceed pre-war levels.

Last week, the UN pointed out that the average number of trucks entering Gaza every day during April was 200, which is far below the required level. 

Critics of the U.S. project say it is difficult to see how 90 extra trucks, should they reach the Palestinians, will alleviate the humanitarian crisis given the time, costs and the number of service members involved in the U.S. port being built off the Gaza coast. 

“How much will taxpayers be on the hook once – or if – the pier is finally constructed?” Wicker noted. 

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, which announced the project in early March, has been accused of allowing excessive food shortage in Gaza under its watch by refusing to pressure the Israeli occupation regime to stop preventing food and water from entering the enclave. (The U.S. has the tools and the influence to do so. Despite growing calls to impose restrictions including military aid, the White House has refused to budge on the issue.) 

There are serious questions over the real motives of the U.S. for establishing the pier. It has been criticized by aid agencies as “glossing over” the humanitarian crisis facing the Palestinians. 

There are suspicions that the U.S. wants to maintain the port and turn it into a military base or use the floating pier to transfer portions of the Gaza population elsewhere in what is legally defined as ethnic cleansing. 

The American military is involved. The Israeli military is involved in the project even closer than mainstream reports suggest. 

In a statement, the Israeli military said it is involved in the port’s construction with logistical support as well as an Israeli military brigade, which includes thousands of soldiers, along with the Israeli navy and air force. 

The only party that is not involved in the project is the Palestinians, who have once again been sidelined. 

Hamas has warned it would target foreign forces, uninvited, on Palestinian land or water. 

“We categorically reject any non-Palestinian presence in Gaza, whether at sea or on land, and we will deal with any military force present in these places, Israeli or otherwise … as an occupying power,” Khalil al-Hayya, a top Hamas political official, told the Associated Press last week. 

He added Israeli forces “have not destroyed more than 20% of (Hamas’) capabilities, neither human nor in the field.”