None Of The Aid Biden Has Sent To Gaza Through Pier Has Reached Palestinians; Much Of It Stolen

None of the aid that President Joe Biden has sent to Gaza via a floating pier that the U.S. Military constructed has reached the Palestinian people, a U.S. official said this week.

Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said on Tuesday that none of the 569 tons of aid transported to Gaza since last week has reached the Palestinian people.

“The U.S. military is delivering [the aid] to the causeway. It’s then taken by non-U.S. contractors, driven over onto shore, put into an assembly area, which is where the NGOs that are supporting this effort pick it up and take it for onward distribution,” he said. “But as I mentioned, you know, via some discussions that have happened, again, as we work out processes and procedures, alternative routes for the safe movement of that cargo have been established, and aid is now being taken from those assembly areas to warehouses for further distribution throughout Gaza.”

Reuters reported that on Saturday, 16 trucks were en route to the warehouse when 11 were overrun and “were cleaned out by Palestinians during the journey through an area that a U.N. official said has been hard to access with humanitarian aid.”

Ryder acknowledged during the press conference that the aid was “intercepted by some people who took that aid off those vehicles.”

He said that while aid was making it in, none of the aid that has come in from the pier has been distributed to civilians in Gaza.

Biden’s $320 million pier for Gaza is at risk of becoming yet another failure for the 81-year-old president as the U.N. World Food Program said it may fail because conditions on the ground in Gaza were not allowing the food to be distributed because the majority of it was being stolen