A U.S. soldier deployed on the Gaza pier mission has been critically wounded in a noncombat-related incident and taken to a hospital in Israel, reports Military.com.
Two other soldiers injured in the mishap have returned to duty, according to an unnamed defense official who spoke with the news outlet.
The soldier taken to the hospital was injured on a staging platform two miles off the coast of Gaza being used to transfer aid from the cargo ship MV Roy P. Benavidez to a smaller Army watercraft moving the aid to the Gaza shoreline.
But U.S. Central Command later released a statement claiming the serious injury actually occurred on the Benavidez.
U.S. Naval Institute News first reported the injury; as of Friday, the soldier hadn’t been identified.
"One was simply a sprained ankle, the other guy ... was a hurt back ... and I won't get into the details of the other one," Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, told the outlet.
Cooper also refused to say what branch any of the injured service members were from.
The Army finished building the floating pier earlier this month. It was installed to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza for Palestinians facing starvation as food and other supplies have dried up in the midst of the Israel-Hamas war.
On Thursday, officials said 820 metric tons of aid has been delivered to the beach and 506 metric tons of aid have been distributed from the beach transfer point to the people of Gaza by the United Nations.
Daniel Dieckhaus, the director for USAID's Levant Response Management Team, told the outlet "by our calculation, that is sufficient food to feed tens of thousands of people for a month."
The Associated Press, meanwhile, reports that experts say all 2.3 million residents of Gaza are now experiencing acute food shortages and around half are at "catastrophic" levels.
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder has said he couldn't say whether the aid was reaching Palestinians, Military.com reports.
“The desired impact that we are shooting for -- that requires a lot to fall into place that we're working on -- is feeding and assisting at least 500,000 people or more per month via the maritime corridor,” he said.
"It's a worthwhile goal, it's a high goal. We hope to exceed it, but a lot goes into that.”