Aid is again entering Gaza by sea though a U.S.-built temporary pier after the structure was reconnected to the beach earlier this week, a defense official told VOA on Thursday.
The U.S. military had disconnected the floating pier last week and moved it to the port of Ashdod in Israel because of bad weather.
Even though supplies are now rolling in, U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq says the U.N. World Food Program has not restarted aid distribution to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip due to lingering security concerns.
The U.N. World Food Program temporarily halted distributions to local partners on June 9, with the agency saying it would resume once a security review is complete and when the U.N. was certain that its staff and partners could move around safely.
The pier arrangement is part of an effort to boost what humanitarian organizations say is a vastly insufficient amount of aid for Palestinian civilians amid the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Aid has been slow to get into Gaza due to long backups of vehicles at Israeli inspection points. The United States and other nations have air-dropped food into Gaza dozens of times in recent months, but air drops are much less efficient and provide greatly smaller quantities of aid than distribution via sea or land.
Following its completion in mid-May, the pier operated for just a few days before it was damaged by stormy weather in late May. That damage stopped operations until June 8.
U.S. Central Command again detached the pier last week to prevent expected rough seas from causing fresh damage to the pier.
The Pentagon says the pier was designed as a temporary measure and allowed the delivery of 3,500 metric tons of aid into Gaza.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of the U.N. spokesman’s name in the third graph.
VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.
