Biden’s Ill-Fated Gaza Pier Debacle Caused Over 60 Injuries to U.S. Military Personnel

JAMES NAULT MAY 12, 2025 7:00 AM

I hate to bring up one of the most horrific aspects (for multiple reasons) of the Biden Administration, but surely you remember the complete train-wreck called the Gaza Pier, which we diligently reported on:

• Biden to Announce Plans to Build Port in Gaza for Humanitarian Aid Shipments
• Gaza Pier Will Take Around 60 Days and 1,000 Troops to Complete
• Biden’s Gaza Floating Port Plan Generating Concern Among Military Professionals
• Report: Gaza Terrorists Attack U.S. Humanitarian Pier During Construction Work
• Biden’s Gaza “Pier to Nowhere” a Disaster and National Embarrassment, Breaks Apart
• Biden’s Gaza Pier, and U.S. Military Personnel, Under Constant Attack
• METAPHOR ALERT: Biden’s Failed Gaza Pier To Be Permanently Retired In A Few Days
• U.S. Military to Dismantle Biden’s Botched $320 Million Gaza Pier
• Two Israeli Soldiers Were Killed Securing Biden’s Gaza Pier, It’s Now Revealed
• U.S. Soldier Hurt During Biden’s Failed Gaza Pier Operation Died of Injuries

And there was other reporting in the general press that things were going horribly:

• Security plan for Gaza aid workers still unclear with military pier to open soon
• U.S. Soldier Critically Injured During Gaza Pier Operation, 2 Other Service Members Hurt
• The U.S. Built a $320 Million Pier to Get Aid to Gazans. Little of It Has Reached Them

I could recount the entire, sordid history, but I’ll spare you. Except for this one video of the Gaza Pier porta-potties that encapsulates everything that was so horribly wrong with the Gaza Pier:

And now, after all this time, during which I had hoped to never think of the Gaza Pier again, the Pentagon’s Inspector General has released a thorough report explaining that over 60!!, yes 60!, military personnel, were injured during the Gaza Pier’s troubled existence.

From the Jerusalem Post: Gaza aid pier: Why 62 US troops were hurt in a mission that shouldn’t have happened – analysis:

A new report has revealed that the temporary pier the US military deployed to Gaza was more dangerous than previously known. The Pentagon’s inspector general’s office released a report that said a total of 62 people were injured during the deployment.

The pier, called Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) was ordered by the White House to be sent to Gaza in March of 2024. It was supposed to help deliver humanitarian aid.From the beginning, it was obvious this was a bad choice. The forces lacked training and equipment for the mission. The US Army is supposed to be responsible for the capability to deploy a floating pier.However, the army watercraft for the mission was not ready.

The article then goes on to blame the U.S. Army, and not President Biden or even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and his staff, but I’m not sure that’s the way it happened. It seems to me the most likely occurrence was that the Army did brief the Chairman and Biden, they told the Army to shut up and make it happen:

But instead of telling the Pentagon and the president that it was ill-prepared, the army went ahead anyway. This wasn’t a place and time for heroism. The US wasn’t fighting a war. This also wasn’t an aid mission to a hostile place. This was a mission to Gaza, which is controlled by Israel.

The article does make some more good points, though:

Therein lies the core question: why did the US need to send vessels thousands of miles across an ocean, which took months to reach Gaza’s coast, carrying humanitarian aid that could have been delivered by trucks across the border?Israel at the time had cut off most of the land crossings to Gaza. If the US wanted to send aid, why didn’t it just make an arrangement with Israel to deliver it via trucks from Ashdod? In fact, that is what eventually happened. The pier was not necessary. Nevertheless, it set sail and was erected in May but only functioned for a few weeks due to bad weather.

It turns out that there was no real study conducted to see if weather conditions and Gaza’s coastline were appropriate for the mission. A report at Marine Executive noted that “In addition, the Army and Navy pontoon systems were different and resulted in damage when used together.”They were designed with different amounts of freeboard, and Army boats would ram into and puncture the sides of taller Navy pontoons. After challenges experienced in a previous exercise, the services had concluded that these systems could not be used together – but they were still deployed and combined for the operation off Gaza.” [See good picture of this damage in IG Report, below]The long list of problems makes it clear how badly this mission was planned…There should be many lessons learned here. The US should not send soldiers on missions that they are not ready for, unless it is absolutely necessary…The fact that more soldiers were injured than previously known is also a red flag. It illustrates that the previous US administration was not forthcoming about this failure and that no one spoke up at the time.

No kidding.

You can review the entire 94-page Pentagon IG Report here.

This is one of the most infuriating occurrences of my lifetime, perhaps mostly because I am sure then-President Biden didn’t give a tinker’s damn about the fate of the U.S. military personnel who were tasked to get injured and die operating this clusterf**k.

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