It was revealed on Sunday that two IDF soldiers were killed last month while securing the Biden administration’s pier built off Gaza “to provide humanitarian aid to innocent Gazan civilians.”

The $320 million pier, built solely to pander to Biden’s progressive anti-Israel and pro-Hamas voters, was a colossal failure and was dismantled last week after operating for only 21 days.

Last month, it was reported that two reserve soldiers, Staff Sgt. Major Elon Waiss, H,yd, 49, and Cpt Eitan Koplovich, H’yd, 28, were killed in the northern Gaza Strip when an explosive device detonated near their tank. Another two soldiers were seriously wounded in the incident.

JNS reported on Sunday that according to an Israeli military source, Waiss, z’l and Koplovich, z’l, were killed while securing the US humanitarian aid pier.

“What led me to talk is really just the frustration towards the end of the last few weeks,” the source said. “It’s a very unsafe operation; anything could happen. They [the United States] could have delivered the aid through any land port and finished within a week, but for whatever publicity reason they built the pier. Then they failed and tried to cover it up.”

The source said that while soldiers were carrying out an operation to secure the pier, IDF tanks ran over a large IED, killing the two soldiers and wounding two others.

“The operation was conducted in defense of the pier. Anything that occurred in the area, they [the Israeli troops] were responsible for protecting it [the pier]. Ultimately, the reason they were engaging these terrorists is because they posed a threat to the forces protecting the aid. The mission was in support of the larger goal of protecting the pier and occurred within that context. Soldiers would not have been positioned within these areas otherwise.”

“When the pier broke the first time, it was a lot more dangerous than they made it sound. It sounded like they were on top of things, but Israel had to fix it all for them. Everything they tried to accomplish, whether it was a defensive operation or daily operations, nothing went without a hitch.”

“There were many tunnels in the area that had not yet been found or had been found but not destroyed. [Gazan] snipers took shots at us from high buildings in the area. I had a bullet go pretty close to my head.”

The source added that U.S. forces went to extreme measures to maintain the appearance that no US troops were operating in Gaza. “Sometimes, they would lay out mats on the floor and walk into Gaza because technically that’s ‘no boots on the ground.’ They deceived the public into thinking they’d carried out something that they did not.”

Additionally, the aid was not even successfully delivered to Gazan civilians. “The food sat in the sun for a month and a half with rats and dogs eating out of it,” the source said. “Bags of flour either arrived damaged or got destroyed by animals. As of last week, a lot of it was no longer viable. As for canned food sitting out in the sun, it probably is salvageable if it eventually gets picked up by the U.N.’s World Food Programme.”

“We were supposed to be able to deliver 30 trucks of humanitarian aid a day to Gazans, which is insignificant in comparison to what comes through land crossings,” he continued. “Each truck contains between 18 to 22 pallets. But this goal fluctuated tremendously. There were days when the pier was down, the equipment didn’t work, nothing was accomplished.”

The source said that the information provided to the public about the pier was inaccurate. “A lot of the information is outright false or embellished and for the most part the operation was a complete failure. There were many other ways [to deliver aid] that were efficient and safer. They [the United States] did it for good media attention. When the media came, they’d use the best equipment. It was very much a show, everything would magically work smoothly somehow. They weren’t really concerned about getting food to Gaza, it was secondary at best for them,” he added.

JNS twice reached out to the IDF to confirm the source’s claim but both times, it was referred to the IDF website and Telegram channel “for information regarding fallen soldiers.”

The U.S. military’s Central Command (CENTCOM), which is responsible for operations in the Middle East, referred JNS back to the IDF.

JNS also spoke with the relatives of the fallen soldiers, who cast doubts on the source’s claims.

“I know that my father was very close to the location of the pier,” Elon’s son Yedidya Waiss, 27, told JNS. “He told us even before he was deployed that he would be located around there. I don’t remember him saying anything about guarding it though. All I know is that he was close to it.”

“The IDF told us that he was on a mission to destroy a Hamas compound, weapons and tunnels when he was killed. They told us about how they heroically rescued the bodies of my father and of Eitan and the two other wounded soldiers. They did not mention anything about the pier, because he was deployed close to it. There may have been a connection, but the IDF did not directly mention it.”

Yedidya added that his father was deployed in the north together with Koplovich, z’l, before being transferred to Gaza.

“Eitan’s wife was expecting a baby while they were in the north so he had to go on leave for a month and a half. My dad was very happy to see him come back.”

“We didn’t really worry. He kept telling us that he was near the Netzarim Corridor [controlled by the IDF and separating northern and southern Gaza], and that it was not like fighting in Rafah or Jabalia. We were really interested to know how his death could happen, but when the IDF mentioned that he was out on a mission, we stopped asking.”

Eitan’s brother Yishay told JNS: “Eitan was close to the pier, he told me that he was sitting on the water close to it, about 100 yards away.”

“I served in the IDF for 25 years in the reserves. Something can happen in any kind of battle, I can’t really blame anyone. You can always find yourself in the wrong place and at the wrong time. I don’t think that what Eitan did in the week and a half that he was in Gaza had to do with humanitarian aid. The pier was working but I don’t think it was something that affected him too much.”

“The IDF wasn’t there because of the pier. The United States, however, was there because they were looking for the safest place to set up the pier. They put it on the beach in the area at the end of the Netzarim route. They were looking for a location under strong Israeli control. They couldn’t exactly put it on Gaza City beach.”

“I guess that his side mission was to protect the pier, but his brigade would have been there regardless. Nobody that I spoke to in the army mentioned the pier as a factor in relation to the mission,” he concluded.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)