The U.S. military’s initial cost of the temporary floating pier off Gaza’s coast is about $320 million, a Pentagon official said Monday.

“We’ve been very clear this is a temporary solution to help get humanitarian aid into Gaza. This is just one other way of getting aid in,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters.

The figure, first reported by Reuters, has not previously been disclosed about the operation that includes about 1,000 American troops.

The pier, known as Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, is meant to provide a new way to deliver badly needed aid into Gaza. The World Health Organization has warned some 2.3 million Gaza inhabitants face extreme hunger that could become a full-blown famine by next month as Israel continues its war against Hamas militants, who launched a surprise assault in October from the enclave.

President Joe Biden first announced the JLOTS operation on March 7 during his State of the Union speech. One day later, Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said the temporary pier would be operational within about 60 days.

Ryder, the Pentagon’s top spokesman, said Thursday U.S. ships have begun construction on the pier.

The Army last month sent four ships from the 7th Transportation Brigade at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., toward the Mediterranean to spearhead the operation. The Navy, in addition to the Benavidez, deployed two more ships to help in the construction of the pier. One of those ships, the USNS 2nd Lt. John P. Bobo was forced to return to the United States last week after suffering an engine room fire.

Ryder also confirmed there was a mortar attack in Gaza in the area where the pier will connect with the shore. But the strike, which happened Wednesday, caused “minimal damage.” U.S. forces were not impacted.

Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a statement Thursday referred to the mortar attack as “unfortunate but predictable.”

“This has been an ill-conceived mission from the start. President Biden should never have put our men and women in this position, and he should abandon this project immediately before any U.S. troops are injured,” Wicker said.

A senior military official, who spoke Thursday to reporters on the condition of anonymity, said the U.S. has “full confidence” in the plan developed with the Israelis in the last month.

Four U.S. Army vessels supporting the temporary pier in the Mediterranean Sea used to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip ran aground because of heavy seas.

"The vessels broke free from their moorings and two vessels are now anchored on the beach near the pier," U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a news release Saturday. "The third and fourth vessels are beached on the coast of Israel near Ashkelon. Efforts to recover the vessels are under way with assistance from the Israeli Navy."

Israeli Defense Forces is supporting the recovery efforts near the pier and no U.S. personnel will enter Gaza, CENTCOM said. No injuries were reported, and the pier remained fully functional.

U.S. soldiers reportedly were forced to go ashore in Israel on the beach near Ashdod, just north of Ashkelon, to free the vessels. President Joe Biden promised in his State of the Union address in March that there would be no "boots on the ground" to support the pier.

It's the latest setback in what has not been a smooth effort to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians caught in Israel's military operation against Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists. The flow of aid was temporarily interrupted when delivery trucks were overrun, resulting in the death of at least one person.

A U.S. soldier was critically wounded, and two other soldiers were 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 U.S. Army watercraft moving the aid to the Gaza shoreline.

One of the craft that was beached on the shore of Ashdod on Saturday was freed from the sand, The Jerusalem Post reported Sunday, citing a U.S. military official.

The U.S. Army LCM 8558 landing craft was beached after trying to free a U.S. Army tugboat that was helping to move the floating pier from an area off the Gaza coast to near Ashdod because of adverse weather conditions, the Post reported.

The USAV Matamoros, a larger U.S. Army landing craft, came to aid the LCM 8558 on Saturday afternoon, the Post reported. It took time to connect a rope from the Matamoros to the LCM, but by midday Sunday, a rope was attached, and the LCM was ready to be pulled off the shore.

The tide remained an issue because low tide was about 6 p.m. local time. At about 9 p.m., a U.S. military official told the Post the LCM was pulled off the beach with the hope that it would remain free of the sand. The goal would then be to take the tug off the beach. Then, the vessels will all be united with the floating pier and likely return to the coast of Gaza so humanitarian aid can be delivered again.