How US plans to deliver Gaza aid

The US solution to deal with hunger in Gaza as Israel continues to pummel the Palestinian enclave while blocking overland access to almost all aid is to deliver supplies using a floating dock and pier

US ARMY SHIPS have sailed from Virginia with equipment to build a floating pier on the Gaza coast to deliver humanitarian aid to the enclave, Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj Gen Pat Ryder said on March 12.

“We expect the pier to be fully operational in approximately 60 days which will be able to facilitate the delivery of about 2 million meals per day,” Ryder said.

The JLOTS project

The project to build the floating pier — the American solution to deal with hunger and an impending famine in Gaza as Israel continues to pummel the Palestinian enclave while blocking overland access to almost all aid — is officially known as Joint Logistics Over-the-shore (JLOTS).

Former Indian Navy officer Cmde Srikant Kesnur(retd)toldtheindianexpressthatjlots capabilities are used to transport cargo by sea when one or more ports cannot be operated or are not available for loading or unloading.

“Usually, JLOTS is part of a military campaign or exercise — either you want to fight in another country or you want to deliver aid and don’t have an operational port to embark or disembark. In most cases, it is assumed that loading (of cargo) would be well executed, but the unloading will happen over the shore,” Cmde Kesnur said.

Such operations usually involve joint operations by the forces — while the navy transports the goods and provides protection, the army or other agencies are involved in building the ‘last mile’ bridge, delivery, etc.

The floating pier in Gaza will be built with no “US boots on the ground”. The US will take the help of the private company Fogbow, which is run by former military and intelligenceofficials,accordingtoareportbythebbc.

The project will consist of two main components, a floating dock and an approximately 548-metre-long pier with a causeway, the US Department of Defense has said.

The floating dock

The floating dock will be a platform built with pieces of steel, which will be delivered to the spot by a roll on, roll off ship — which is essentially a cargo ship with a platform to load and unload heavy cargo.

While the pier will be attached to the shore, the dock could be located up to a kilometre from the coast. The dock is required so that ships carrying aid don’t have to come close to the shore where they may possibly get stuck in shallow water, Maj Gen A V Krishna (Retd), a former officer of the Indian Army, told The Indian Express.

“They (the US) will send a ship (to supply the aid) that is (of) 40,000 tonnes. Anything smaller will be a costly business. Such a ship, depending upon the load, will require a depth of more than 4-5 metres, called minimum draft requirement. If it is less, the ship’s keel will get stuck, and it’s very difficult to pull out a ship that is embedded in sand,” Maj Gen Krishna said.

Pier and causeway

Once the ship unloads the aid on the dock, smaller Logistics Support Vessels (LSVS) will be used to transfer the cargo from the dock to the pier or jetty, which will be a floating structure linking to the shore. A pier can be built in three ways, Maj Gen Krishna said.

One, by using a “ribbon floating” bridge. “Such bridges are used for crossing rivers during wartime. They are strong and can be built within weeks. Each section of the bridge is about 6 metres by 6 metres, and the bridge is folded with the help of torsion bars in the form of a ‘W’. Once the roll on, roll off ship reaches the location, the bridge segments can be pushed into the water and connected end-to-end simultaneously, pushing the bridge towards the shore,” he said. Once the bridge touches the shore, anchors will be dropped on either side of each section to ensure the structure’s stability.

A second way is to use a different type of floating bridge, manufactured by the Ukbased company Mabey, Maj Gen Krishna said. The Mabey floating bridge is constructed over a number of pontoons, which are small, flatbottomed boats with anchors at each end.

On reaching the spot, the roll on, roll off ship will begin to push out the pontoons at right angles to the line of the bridge at the place where the pier is required.

“Say the ship is 500 metres from the shore. You will push out the first pontoon to a distance of 5-10 metres; then the second pontoon to another 5-10 metres. Over these two pontoons, a panel of the bridge will be made. Subsequently, a third pontoon will be pushed out and the previous two will be pushed further towards the shore,” Maj Gen Krishna said.

The process is repeated until the pontoons reach the shore. The bridge on the pontoons is typically a Bailey bridge, a truss bridge that is commonly used in mountainous areas.

The third way is to use a foam floating bridge made of elastomeric materials that are like rubber, but offer better material properties, Maj Gen Krishna said. Such bridges are commonly used in resorts. The US has heavyduty versions of these bridges, but they are somewhat shaky, he said.

The pier will also have a causeway that will act as its extension. The causeway will ensure that vehicles carrying the aid from the pier to the coast don’t get stuck in boggy sand. Fogbow, the private firm, will move the aid from the shore to distribution points further inland by trucks, the BBC report said.

Why bridges float

All floating bridges can take heavy weights such as tanks and cargo. They stay afloat because of buoyancy and density.

The principle of buoyancy states that any fully or partially submerged object experiences an upward force — known as buoyant force — equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object.

Objects that are less dense than water stay afloat. That’s because they displace less water and therefore, the buoyant force is more than the gravitational force. Objects that are denser than water sink.

Notably, the ribbon floating bridge is made of steel, which is denser than water. To ensure that it remains afloat, the segments of the bridge are hollow, and contain an adequate quantity of air that makes them less dense than water. The floating dock will also have hollow steel segments.