CENTCOM said four ships had broken away from their moorings, but the pier was still functional.
The waves swept away ships supporting the US-built jetty installed to transfer aid to Gaza, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said.
In a statement released Saturday, CENTCOM noted that during the transport of the humanitarian aid, the U.S. floating dock was disconnected from the small boat towing it and the vessels broke free from their moorings, with two of them being now anchored on the beach near the pier.
Part of the dock then drifted towards the Israeli coast of Ashdod, while the third and fourth ships ran aground on the Israeli coast near Ashkelon, CENTCOM added.
No injuries have been reported so far and efforts to recover the vessels are underway with the help of the Israeli and US navies.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Heidi Zhou-Castro said from Washington DC that the Pentagon had stressed that the pier remained fully functional.
“They (the Department of Defense) emphasized that throughout this operation, no American personnel would enter Gaza,” she added.
Construction of the $320 million floating jetty was completed in mid-May to provide aid to the Gaza Strip.
The pier has been criticized as a complicated and expensive alternative that attempts to distract from demanding a much simpler solution: that Israel completely open all land crossings into Gaza and secure aid trucks arriving there .
But in March, US President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union that the pier would “receive large cargoes carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelter”, a move widely seen as an attempt to appease his Democratic Party’s base as he runs. for his re-election in November.
Separately, on Friday, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN chief Antonio Guterres, said the World Food Program (WFP) had “taken possession of 97 trucks since the floating dock came into operation.”
“After a difficult start, the situation has stabilized,” Dujarric said.
“What we want, as we have said, is massive aid arriving by land,” he added.
