The Biden administration built a floating pier off Gaza at the cost of $320 million. Hamas mortared it on April 25, before it opened, just to let the Americans know who’s boss. A senior Hamas official told the Associated Press that any foreign soldiers would be treated as “an occupying force and aggression.” The Biden administration has not given the Gazans a lifeline; it has given Hamas more leverage. If the U.S. disappoints Hamas and Hamas lobs more mortars at the pier, American servicemen and women will be in the firing line.

Given the volume of food now coming into Gaza overland from Israel, the pier is no longer needed. The first shipment of goods via the pier was hijacked as soon as the trucks left the secure landing zone. Like the money that the Biden administration started sending to Gaza in 2021, the food will be distributed by Hamas. As with the money, so with the food: U.S. aid is bolstering Hamas’s rule, and the administration knows it. The difference is, in 2021, the administration sent the money in the assumption, then widely shared, that Hamas could be bought off.