WASHINGTON — The pier built by the U.S. military to bring aid to Gaza has been removed to protect it from the weather, and the U.S. is considering not reinstalling it unless the aid begins flowing out into the population again, U.S. officials said Friday.

While the military has helped deliver desperately needed food through the pier, the vast majority of it is still sitting in the adjacent storage yard and that area is almost full. Aid agencies have had difficulty moving the food to areas further into Gaza where it is most needed because the humanitarian convoys have come under attack.

The U.N., which has the widest reach in delivering aid to starving Palestinians, hasn’t been distributing food and other emergency supplies arriving through the pier since June 9. The pause came after the Israeli military used an area near the pier to fly out hostages after their rescue in a raid that killed more than 270 Palestinians, prompting a U.N. security review over concerns that aid workers’ safety and neutrality may have been compromised.

While always meant to be temporary and never touted as a complete solution to the problems in getting humanitarian aid into Gaza, President Joe Biden’s $230 million pier project has faced a series of setbacks since aid first rolled ashore May 17 and has been criticized by relief groups and congressional Republicans as a costly distraction.

The pier has been used to get more than 19.4 million pounds of food into Gaza but has been stymied not only by aid pauses but unpredictable weather. Rough seas damaged the pier just days into its initial operations, forcing the military to remove it temporarily for repairs. Heavy seas Friday forced the military to remove it again and take it to the Israeli port at Ashdod.

Several U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss military movements, said the military could reinstall the pier once the bad weather passes in the coming days, but the final decision on whether to reinstall it hasn’t been made.

Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman, acknowledged that she doesn’t know when the pier will be reinstalled. “When the commander decides that it is the right time to reinstall that pier, we’ll keep you updated on that,” she said.

Meanwhile, the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp entered the eastern Mediterranean Sea this week as the U.S. positions warships to try to keep fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon from escalating into a wider war in the Middle East.

While the Wasp has the capability to assist in the evacuation of civilians if full-scale war breaks out between Israel and the Iranian-backed militant group along the Lebanon border, that’s not the primary reason it was rotated in, a U.S. official said. “It’s about deterrence,” the official said.

A second U.S. official said the rotation is similar to the U.S. sending the USS Bataan assault ship into the waters off Israel shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, with the vessel remaining for months in the eastern Mediterranean to help provide options and try to contain the conflict.