US military says first aid delivered to Gaza via temporary pier

The US military said aid deliveries began Friday via a temporary pier in Gaza aimed at ramping up emergency humanitarian assistance to the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.

"Today at approximately 9 am (0600 GMT), trucks carrying humanitarian assistance began moving ashore via a temporary pier in Gaza," the US Central Command said in a statement, adding that no US troops went ashore.

"This is an ongoing, multinational effort to deliver additional aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza via a maritime corridor that is entirely humanitarian in nature," it said.

The pier was successfully anchored on Thursday, with around 500 tonnes of aid expected to enter the Palestinian territory in the coming days.

Photographs released by CENTCOM showed humanitarian aid being lifted onto a barge in the nearby Israeli port of Ashdod.

Britain said Friday that an aid shipment had been successfully delivered to Gaza using the temporary pier, vowing to send more in the coming weeks.

The aid, which included more than 8,000 temporary shelters, was sent from Larnaca port in Cyprus.

France said Friday that a ship carrying 60 tonnes of aid from Cyprus was being unloaded on the temporary pier, with further deliveries planned in the next weeks.

The Palestinian territory is facing famine after an Israeli siege brought dire shortages of food as well as safe water, medicines and fuel for its 2.4 million people.

The arrival of occasional aid convoys has slowed to a trickle since Israeli forces took control last week of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing from Egypt.

The UN has said that opening up land crossing points and allowing more truck convoys into Gaza is the only way to stem the spiralling humanitarian crisis.

But it welcomed the deliveries on Friday and said it had agreed to support the distribution of aid into Gaza from the floating dock.

The Gaza war broke out after Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's devastating military retaliation has killed at least 35,272 people, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza.