US dock in Gaza receives first aid shipment
The temporary dock set up by the United States off the coast of the Gaza Strip received its first shipment of humanitarian aid on Friday, the US military said.
On Friday, "at about 0900 hours [0600 GMT], trucks carrying humanitarian aid began unloading [a first shipment] at a temporary dock" on the Gaza Strip coast, the US military's Middle East command (Centcom) said on social media.
Today at approximately 9 a.m. (Gaza time), trucks carrying humanitarian assistance began moving ashore via a temporary pier in Gaza. No U.S. troops went ashore in Gaza. This is an ongoing, multinational effort to deliver additional aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza via a… pic.twitter.com/Gdt9Scgq2y
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) May 17, 2024
It is "a multinational effort to deliver more aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza through a humanitarian-only sea corridor," it added.
The US finished setting up this temporary dock on Thursday, and about 500 tonnes of aid is expected to arrive in the Palestinian territory in the coming days.
The cargo was loaded aboard barges in the nearby Israeli port of Ashdod.
The dock, costing at least 320 million dollars, is part of international efforts to circumvent Israeli land access restrictions.
According to the UN, famine threatens most of the Palestinian territory's 2.4 million inhabitants, where the Israeli siege has caused severe shortages of food, drinking water, medicine and fuel.
The arrival of occasional aid convoys has been reduced to a trickle since Israeli forces took control last week of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, a crucial entry point for supplies.
The UN warned that opening land crossings and allowing more truck convoys into Gaza is the only way to stop the humanitarian crisis triggered by the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
The war erupted on 7 October following an attack by Hamas in southern Israel that killed more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP assessment based on official Israeli figures.
More than 250 people were kidnapped and 128 remain captive in Gaza, of whom 38 are believed to have been killed, according to the army.
Israel's retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 35,272 people, mostly civilians, according to the Health Ministry of Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007.
