Heavy seas have caused extensive damage to a temporary US military pier used to transport aid to Gaza, US officials said Monday, adding that the repairs are expected to take up to a week.

US forces began constructing the floating pier a few weeks ago, which is connected to Gaza’s coastline by an interim causeway.

According to reports, the causeway section of the project has come loose and will need to be fixed before it can be put back in place.

Humanitarian groups have said that the resources available to Palestinians in Gaza are only a small portion of what is needed to feed and shelter them.

The pier, first reported by U.S. news agencies in March, consists of two main structures: a large steel-framed floating dock and a 2-lane, 510m (1,800ft) causeway, as well as a pier.

The causeway section of the project consists of a series of welded, 40ft(12m) steel sections that are joined together and connected to the shore.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Defense reported that a section of the causeway breached in heavy weather.

As long as it is connected to the shoreline of Gaza, the section will have to be taken away and sent to Ashod, an Israeli port, for repair before it can re-connect with the causeway.

Pentagon Spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said that the Israeli navy will assist in the removal of the pier over the next couple of days.

The repairs will take over a week, she said.

Ms Singh said the weather in the area was not ideal for the pier to be deployed, but Defence officials are still hopeful that the pier will be operational again in the near future.

I don’t know what the weather will be like,” she said, “but we think we can anchor this pier again depending on the season.”

“Weather-related delays are likely to be a problem,” said Mick Mulroy, one of the co-founders of Fogbow, the private company behind the Gaza pier project and a former Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East.

These obstacles can be overcome and the mission is worth it, he added. “There are people who need help, and this is a way to get it to them.”

On May 17, the US military said that the first consignments of aid were sent through the pier to Gaza, but in another incident last weekend, four vessels that support the pier ran aground in “heavy sea states,” with two of them beaching.

In another incident, three U.S. Marines serving on a pier mission in the Gaza Strip were injured, with one in critical condition after being airlifted to a medical facility in Israel.

According to the Reuters news agency, a spokesman for the United Nations Food Programme (UNFPA) said the UN has moved 137 trucks of aid – equivalent to about 900 metric tons – from the pier since it opened.

On Tuesday at the White House, John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said that the pier would never be used to “deliver aid to Gazans through land crossings,” but rather could serve as a “force multiplier.”

According to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), over 1,000 tons have been shipped to shore and about 900 tons have reached United Nations (UN) warehouses.

As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared that he will not give up on his goal of “total victory” over Rafah, Hamas’s last remaining major city in southern Gaza.

Hamas-affiliated militants launched an assault on Israel on October 7, resulting in the death of an estimated 1,200 people, and the capture of 252 additional people as human shields.