WASHINGTON — The U.S. military-built pier has been pulled again from the Gaza shore due to rough seas, and its future role in the distribution of aid to Palestinians is uncertain.

Humanitarian aid groups stopped distributing supplies that arrived by sea on June 9 due to security concerns and have not started again. U.S. officials say the pier may not be reinstalled unless aid agencies reach an agreement to begin distributing the aid again. Meanwhile, food and other provisions shipped from Cyprus are piling up on shore, and soon the the secure area on the beach in Gaza will reach capacity.

It’s been a long and difficult road for the pier, which has been battered by weather and troubled by security problems. Here’s a look at how it started and where it is now.

March: announcement and prep

MARCH 7: President Joe Biden announces his plan for the U.S. military to build a pier during his State of the Union address.

“Tonight, I’m directing the U.S. military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the coast of Gaza that can receive large shipments carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters,” he said.

But even in those first few moments, he noted the pier would increase the amount of humanitarian aid getting into Gaza but that Israel “must do its part” and let more aid in.

MARCH 8: Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon spokesman, tells reporters it will take “up to 60 days” to deploy the forces and build the project.

MARCH 12: Four U.S. Army boats loaded with tons of equipment and steel pier segments leave Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia and head to the Atlantic Ocean for what is expected to be a monthlong voyage to Gaza.

The brigade’s commander, Army Col. Sam Miller, warns that the transit and construction will be heavily dependent on the weather and any high seas they encounter.

LATE MARCH: U.S. Army vessels hit high seas and rough weather as they cross the Atlantic, slowing their pace.

April: construction and hope

APRIL 1: Seven World Central Kitchen aid workers are killed in an Israeli airstrike as they travel in clearly marked vehicles on a delivery mission authorized by Israel.

The strike fuels ongoing worries about security for relief workers and prompts aid agencies to pause delivery of humanitarian assistance in Gaza.

APRIL 19: U.S. officials confirm that the U.N. World Food Program has agreed to help deliver aid brought to Gaza via the maritime route once construction is done.

APRIL 25: Major construction of the port facility on the shore near Gaza City begins to take shape. The onshore site is where aid from the causeway will be delivered and given to aid agencies.

APRIL 30: Satellite photos show the U.S. Navy ship USNS Roy P. Benavidez and Army vessels working on assembling the pier and causeway about 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) from the port on shore.

May: The pier opens … then closes

MAY 9: The U.S. vessel Sagamore is the first ship loaded with aid to leave Cyprus and head toward Gaza and ultimately the pier. An elaborate security and inspection station has been built in Cyprus to screen the aid coming from a number of countries.

MAY 16: Well past the 60-day target time, the construction and assembly of the pier off the Gaza coast and the causeway attached to the shoreline are finished after more than a week of weather and other delays.

MAY 17: The first trucks carrying aid for the Gaza Strip roll down the newly built pier and into the secure area on shore, where they will be unloaded and the cargo distributed to aid agencies for delivery by truck into Gaza.

May 18: Crowds of desperate Palestinians overrun a convoy of aid trucks coming from the pier, stripping the cargo from 11 of the 16 vehicles before they reach a U.N. warehouse for distribution.

May 19-20: The first food from the pier — a limited number of high-nutrition biscuits — reaches people in need in central Gaza, according to the World Food Program.

Aid organizations suspend deliveries from the pier for two days while the U.S. works with Israel to open alternate land routes from the pier and improve security.

MAY 24: So far, a bit more than 1,000 metric tons of aid has been delivered to Gaza via the U.S.-built pier, and USAID later says all of it has been distributed within Gaza.

MAY 25: High winds and heavy seas damage the pier and cause four U.S. Army vessels operating there to become beached, injuring three service members, including one who is in critical condition.

Two vessels went aground in Gaza near the base of the pier and two went aground near Ashkelon in Israel.

MAY 28: Large portions of the causeway were pulled from the beach and moved to an Israeli port for repairs. The base of the causeway remains at the Gaza shore.

June: big crises for the pier

JUNE 7: The damaged causeway was rebuilt and reconnected to the beach in Gaza.

JUNE 8: The U.S. military announced that deliveries resumed off the repaired and reinstalled dock.

The same day, Israel rescued four hostages taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attacks in an operation that killed 270 Palestinians.

JUNE 9: World Food Program chief Cindy McCain announced a “pause” in cooperation with the U.S. pier during a TV interview, citing the previous day’s “incident” and the rocketing of two WFP warehouses that injured a staffer.

JUNE 10: WFP said the U.N. would conduct a security review to assess the safety of its staff in handling aid deliveries from the pier. In the meantime, the U.S. military said it would stockpile aid shipments on a secure beach in Gaza.

Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, said no aspect of the pier or its equipment had been used in Israel’s rescue operation. The Pentagon says an area south of the pier was used for the return of the freed hostages back to Israel.

JUNE 14: The pier was detached from the beach in Gaza to prevent damage during rough seas and allow the military to reattach it more quickly later, U.S. officials said.

JUNE 19: The pier was re-anchored in Gaza and more than 656 metric tons, or 1.4 million pounds, of aid was delivered in the hours after it resumed operations, Ryder said.

Aid agencies, however, did not restart their distribution of the aid, so workers have been storing it in the secure area.

JUNE 28: The pier is removed due to weather, and the U.S. is considering not putting it back unless aid begins heading again to Palestinians in need, several U.S. officials said.

Related Articles

Israel lets 19 kids leave Gaza who are sick or wounded, first medical evacuation in nearly 2 months

Netanyahu says he won’t agree to a deal that ends the war in Gaza, testing the latest truce proposal

Israeli strikes on tent camps near Rafah kill at least 25 and wound 50, Gaza health officials say

Israel’s pledge to guard an aid route into Gaza falls flat as lawlessness blocks distribution

Thomas Friedman: American leaders should stop debasing themselves on Israel

Abdullah Arif’s wife said the couple escaped from Iraq to get away from the violence and killings of adults and children. They came to America to seek peace and to make a life here, Maeda Obaidi told the court Friday.

And Arif worked hard to learn the language and become a U.S. citizen, she said.

Abdullah Arif (Courtesy of GoFundMe)

“He took care of me and my children and did his best to keep us safe,” she said in a statement that was read by a prosecutor and interpreted into the Arabic language. “We had hope and a vision of continuing to prosper here in America.”

But then Arif was “senselessly and violently taken away,” she said, by Elias-Kareem Hany Aly, who fatally shot the 48-year-old Stillwater father of four during a confrontation last year at Union Tobacco on St. Paul’s West Side where he worked part time.

“I lost the love of my life, and the children lost their loving father,” his wife said.

Ramsey County District Judge David Ireland went on to give Aly, 22, of St. Paul, 13 years and nine months in prison for the murder, denying a request from his attorney for a downward departure from state sentencing guidelines. The guidelines called for between nearly 12 and 16½ years.

In exchange for a February straight guilty plea to second-degree unintentional murder, the prosecution agreed to dismiss an intentional murder charge at sentencing.

Arif was killed after confronting Aly and his friends inside the store along Stryker Avenue and Stevens Street, then outside. Arif had asked Aly to remove a mask covering his face in the store and, as Aly left, he pulled down a door chime. Arif went outside with a baseball bat and up to their Dodge Durango. Aly shot him once while sitting in the front passenger seat, the bullet piercing his heart and liver.

Less than an hour before the killing, Aly was at the same downtown courthouse as Friday for a hearing on a June 2020 gross misdemeanor charge of possession of a firearm by an ineligible person.

Related Articles

Woman’s body spotted in flooded Mississippi River in St. Paul, recovered 7 miles downstream

For murder of wife in their St. Paul bedroom, as daughter slept down hall, man gets 21-year sentence

After body found in crashed car on I-90, woman’s ex suspected of murdering her

Three charged in killing of Mounds View man at St. Paul light-rail platform

3-year-old girl who drowned in Cottage Grove swimming pool is identified

Aly was on conditional release from jail when he shot Arif after he posted a $200,000 bond in June 2022 in connection with a drive-by shooting in Maplewood. He was also on probation for three felony cases out of Dakota County — two for drug possession, the other for fleeing police in a motor vehicle — at the time of the murder.

After his sentencing Friday, in a separate hearing, Aly pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by an ineligible person for his role in the drive-by shooting.

Following the plea, Ireland gave Aly a five-year prison term, which will run concurrent with his murder sentence.

Collapsed into snow

St. Paul police were sent to the West Side smoke shop just after at 3:30 p.m. Feb. 16, 2023, and found Arif with a gunshot wound to the chest. He was pronounced dead at Regions Hospital.

Two store employees gave similar accounts of the shooting and what led up to it. They said four men came into the store. One of the men, later identified as Aly, wore a balaclava, which covered his head and face except for the area around his eyes. Arif asked Aly to remove the mask, but he refused and reportedly said, “You don’t need to see my (expletive) face,” the criminal complaint said.

Employees told police they explained to the group they don’t allow people to conceal their identities because of theft and other issues at the store.

The employee said a man with Aly used a credit card to make a purchase and Aly knocked down a door chime when he left. Arif noticed the chime was missing, grabbed a baseball bat from behind the counter and ran after the group.

The shooting was caught on surveillance video, which showed Arif near the driver’s side of the SUV and another employee on the passenger side. “(Arif) never raised the baseball bat as if to hit anything with it,” the criminal complaint said.

Arif approached the driver’s side window of the group’s Dodge Durango, and then moved back. The other employee “reacted to something” and Arif fell to the ground. He knelt in the street, as the employee helped him get up. He ran toward the sidewalk, then collapsed into a pile of snow.

Elias-Kareem Hany Aly (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

About 45 minutes earlier, surveillance video showed Aly and another man, identified in the criminal complaint as QZ, walk out of the Ramsey County courthouse at 2:51 p.m. and leave in a Dodge Durango. The SUV headed south over the Wabasha Street bridge.

Video from the store, which is just over a mile from the courthouse, showed Aly in the same clothing that he had on at the court hearing and officers identified him as the shooter. QZ had rented the SUV from Enterprise.

In an interview with investigators, Aly was shown a photo that showed him at the courthouse that day. He initially claimed he didn’t recognize the photo. When told it was from his court appearance on previous gun charges, Aly said, “Oh, yeah,” the complaint said. He asked if he had a new charge, and then ended the interview.

‘My actions took a man’

In arguing for the downward departure Friday, Aly’s attorney, Frederick Goetz, told the court that in his view Arif was an “aggressor” in the incident and that Aly fired the shot because he was afraid.

“Mr. Aly acted under duress and therefore a durational departure is warranted and appropriate under the law,” Goetz said, while asking the judge for an eight-year, nine-month sentence.

Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Wesley Abrahamson said Aly and his friends were not in danger while sitting in the Durango. Abrahamson noted how QZ told police, “That man didn’t have to die.” QZ also “recognized that in his estimate, the worst outcome was some damage to his vehicle as a result of Mr. Arif’s actions,” Abrahamson said.

In his brief remarks to the court, which included an apology to Arif’s family, Aly said he “reacted out of fear and emotion … and there is no justifying what I did. I can’t blame anyone else for what I did. My actions took a man.”

While it’s clear Arif picked up a baseball bat and “charged up to the car, making him an aggressor,” the judge said, “looking at the totality of the circumstances, I don’t believe that that justified a compelling reason to grant a downward durational departure.”

Related Articles

For murder of wife in their St. Paul bedroom, as daughter slept down hall, man gets 21-year sentence

After body found in crashed car on I-90, woman’s ex suspected of murdering her

Three charged in killing of Mounds View man at St. Paul light-rail platform

Stephen L. Carter: Crime labs are drowning in work. That hurts us all

Noah Feldman: It just got easier to be convicted of a crime

Oakdale is hosting its 40th annual Summerfest this weekend.

Summerfest, which was first held in 1984, brings people together for food, entertainment, music, community-building and more, said Lori Pulkrabek, the city’s communications manager.

Summerfest, which runs through Saturday, is held in Walton Park.

The festivities include kids activities, a free community picnic, a pop-up splash pad and live music, and a fireworks show, which will be at 10 p.m. Saturday.

RELATED: Here’s where to find Fourth of July fireworks and other events

For more information, go to www.OakdaleSummerfest.com.

Related Articles

Alamo Drafthouse to reopen in Woodbury

‘If it fits through the front door, we’ll work on it.’ Longtime Lake Elmo veterinarian retires after 52 years.

Where to find Fourth of July fireworks and events in the St. Paul area

3-year-old girl who drowned in Cottage Grove swimming pool is identified

Washington County Board to hold Friday emergency meeting amid flood preparations