America has invested a great deal in bringing aid into Gaza. So why isn’t that aid actually helping the civilians who need it?

From Military.com. The Pentagon said Tuesday that it believes none of the hundreds of tons of aid delivered over several days via a military-built pier in Gaza has made it to Palestinians.

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The pier, erected by the U.S. Army to ease the humanitarian crisis amid the Israel-Hamas war, was secured to the Gaza shoreline Thursday, and trucks began dropping off pallets of food ashore on Friday. But the United Nations reported difficulties moving the aid once it reached the shore, including an apparent ambush that reportedly turned deadly.

Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters Tuesday that more than 569 metric tons of aid had been delivered to Gaza via the pier, called a Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore operation, or JLOTS, but that it did not appear that any of it had actually been delivered to the starving residents of Gaza. …

During the first days of aid deliveries, reports indicate that the security situation outside the pier area is highly unstable and dangerous. Ryder confirmed that some of the first loads of aid that were brought in were looted before aid organizations could formally distribute them. …

Officials from the U.N. World Food Program — one of the aid groups working on the ground in Gaza — told The Associated Press that none of the 11 aid trucks that left the beach area where supplies were being stockpiled made it to a warehouse Saturday.

The group said a crowd of people gathered nearby and “commandeered” the aid, and The Associated Press reported that the scene ended with one Palestinian dead from a gunshot. …

On Thursday, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, told reporters that the U.S. was looking to move an “initial tranche of 500 tons in the coming days, which is pretty substantial, and then more to follow behind.”

What is less clear is who is responsible for providing security for food convoys once they leave the area of the pier. Beyond some military advisers in Israel and surveillance drones over Gaza, the U.S. military has stayed out of the war zone. …

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(Excerpt from Military.com. Photo Credit: Mohammed Ibrahim on Unsplash)