US announces it has docked temporary pier in Gaza, ready to receive aid

The United States announced Thursday that it had completed a temporary pier on the coast of the Gaza Strip, to deliver more aid to the territory ravaged by seven months of war and whose main entry points have been blocked for more than one week.

Thursday morning, American soldiers, “supporting the humanitarian mission of delivering additional humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in need, secured the temporary pier at the Gaza beach”, indicates on X the US Central Command, the competent American joint command particularly for the Middle East.

“It is expected that trucks loaded with humanitarian aid will begin to dock in the coming days,” continues the Command, specifying that the aid will be handed over to the UN which “will coordinate its distribution in Gaza.”

This pier, with an announced cost of $320 million, according to the Pentagon, was initially scheduled to be completed on May 7.

The British Foreign Office announced on Wednesday that a ship loaded with aid had left the Cypriot port of Larnaca bound for the facility.

He must unload around 100 tonnes of temporary shelter for the inhabitants of Gaza, 2.4 million people, around 70% of whom have been displaced by the war, in a territory already overpopulated and under siege for seven months.

Israel launched an all-out offensive against the Gaza Strip in response to the bloody attack on its soil by Hamas commandos on October 7.

International aid, strictly controlled by the Israeli authorities, was already arriving in trickles, but its entry into the Gaza Strip is now largely hampered at the two main crossing points – Kerem Shalom from Israel and Rafah from Egypt.

On May 7, the Israeli army seized the Rafah crossing point on the Palestinian side, through which all the fuel essential to the operation of the infrastructure of the Gaza Strip – deprived of electrical power since the start of the war – passed. Israeli offensive – and humanitarian logistics.

Since then, Egypt has refused to coordinate the delivery of aid with Israel through Rafah, with the two countries blaming each other for the blockage.

Closed for several days in early May after coming under Hamas rocket fire, Kerem Shalom is officially open, but humanitarian organizations say they cannot collect the aid sent there due to lack of fuel and due to fighting in the area.