GOP senator slams ‘exploding’ cost to US of building Gaza aid pier

WASHINGTON — The US military’s cost estimate to build a pier off Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid has risen to $320 million, a US defense official and a source familiar with the matter tell 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 US 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, tells Reuters, when asked about the costs.

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

Wicker and some other lawmakers have questioned whether the pier is a worthwhile endeavor, particularly given the risk that US military personnel could become targets of Hamas terrorists.

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

“For every day this mission continues, the price tag goes up and so does the level of risk for the 1,000 deployed troops within range of Hamas’s rockets.”