Inside the US plan to build a 1,800ft floating dock off Gaza: Video shows how port will be built as 1,000 troops are deployed from Virginia

The U.S. sent four Army boats this week off to Gaza after President Joe Biden approved deployment of 1,000 troops as construction begins of a temporary dock to deliver aid to Palestinians amid the Israel-Hamas conflict.

As the ships left Virginia for Gaza on Tuesday, the Star Wars theme song for the authoritarian Galactic Empire, The Imperial March, was playing over a speaker, according to video of the departure.

Pro-Israel users immediately took to X, formerly Twitter, to say the song choice was ‘terrifying’ but ‘made sense’ because they are the ‘bad guys.’

Military video of a similar dock offshore of the United Arab Emirates exhibits what such a floating pier could look like once completed near Gaza. 

Drone footage shows sailors, soldiers offloading Marine Corps equipment from a Logistics Support Vessel (LSV) onto the floating causeway Trident Pier during an exercise in March 2020 as a way to respond to natural disasters and other crises.

The vessels that left this week for Gaza are loaded with tons of equipment and steel pier segments for construction of a floating port. 

Comes as the Biden administration ramps up delivery of food, supplies and other aid to Palestinians caught in the crosshairs of the war between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group – which serves as the de facto government in Gaza.

President Biden insists there will be no U.S. troops on the ground in Gaza, but it is unclear who will be unloading containers of aid to take it to land once the offshore pier is completed.

Family members and senior Army commanders watched as the four boats departed Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Hampton and Newport News, Virginiafor what could be a months-long voyage from the James River to the Mediterranean Sea.

About 70 soldiers with the 7th Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary) were aboard the Army landing crafts USAV Wilson Wharf, USAV Matamoros and USAV Monterrey, as well as the larger USAV SP4 James A. Loux, a logistics support watercraft.

Army Col. Sam Miller, the brigade’s commander, said the trip could take a month and construction at least another week – and that approximately 500 of his soldiers will participate in the mission.

‘The soldiers here are energized, they’re motivated, they’re excited,’ Miller said. He claimed the new humanitarian mission ‘gives them purpose and meaning.

Miller noted that just 36 hours after Biden ordered the operation, the USAV General Frank S. Besson logistics ship left Joint Base Langley-Eustis on Saturday.

Pentagon officials say about 1,000 U.S. troops will be involved in total.

Biden is struggling to balance backing U.S. ally Israel amid widespread ceasefire sentiment among factions of his Arab-American, pro-Palestinian and progressive voter base.

It has not-yet been announced where the temporary, floating pier will be placed along the Gaza shore to receive aid. 

Republicans are critical of the operation, claiming that the aid will be intercepted by Hamas terrorists and help their efforts against Israel rather than go towards struggling and starving Palestinians.

Hamas militants entered Israel in an October 7, 2023 attack that led to the largest single-day murder of Jewish people since the Holocaust.

Meanwhile, Israel has launched a series of counterstrikes into Gaza with thousands of Palestinians as collateral and the United Nations saying virtually all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are struggling to find food.

Getting humanitarian aid to the region is difficult to coordinate with the Israeli military as Hamas is still holding hostages in Gaza.

The Pentagon plan to build the ‘modular causeway system’ offshore of Gaza will create a floating platform where ships are able to unload large containers of aid to then be transported by the Army to a motorized string of steel causeway sections up to the shore.

This is the structure which the Army has been deploying to start construction.

The pier could be as long as 1,800 feet with two lanes and ability to deliver more than 2 million meals each day for Gaza residents, according to the Pentagon.

Col. Miller said a larger MAritime Sealift Command ship will leave Virginia in coming days carrying some of the larger equipment and more steel pier segments.