The U.S. military’s cost estimate to build a pier off Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid has risen to $320 million, a U.S. defense official and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The figure, which has not been previously reported, illustrates the massive scale of a construction effort that the Pentagon has said involves about 1,000 U.S. service members, mostly from the Army and Navy.

Still, the cost has roughly doubled from initial estimates earlier this year, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“The cost has not just risen. It has exploded,” Senator Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Democratic-led Senate Armed Services Committee, told Reuters, when asked about the costs.

  • PugJesus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    443·
    7 months ago

    I’ve got a great cost-saving idea!

    Withhold all aid from Israel until they start allowing serious amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza!

    Boom! 320 million saved, AND a far greater amount of aid reaches Palestinians! Win-win!

    Yeah. I wish there was the support available for that.

      • ikidd@lemmy.world
        12·
        7 months ago

        Why in the everloving fuck do alternative methods end-running Israel to get food, water and medicine to civilians in Gaza need to be built? There are airports and docks that can be used right next to the zone, and Israel controls the roads.

        If they acted like anything except a tin-pot dictatorship, this would be completely unnecessary. But here we are. The sooner the ICC swears out a warrant for the nazis in charge, the better. Then maybe we can get some human beings in charge that know how to run a functioning democracy.

      • maynarkh@feddit.nl
        92·
        7 months ago

        The pier was built to lessen the political effects of letting Israel bar the literal convoys of aid out of the country they are committing genocide in.

        It’s a 320 million USD version of thoughts and prayers.