More than 1 million pounds of aid has reached the people of Gaza through a new U.S. military dock, but assistance received through the besieged coastal territory remains far below the levels rescuers want to see.
American troops helped deliver 1.2 million pounds of aid to Gaza as of Thursday, according to Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, deputy commander of U.S. Central Command.
Cooper told reporters that the military has brought 820 metric tons of aid through the dock to the coast since it was brought online on Friday, with 106 metric tons delivered to Palestinians in Gaza.
“We are currently in a hot start period,” he added, noting that there are thousands of tons of aid in the pipeline. “Efforts are underway to scale up in the coming days.”
But the amount of aid entering through Gaza has plummeted in recent weeks. The United Nations warned earlier this week that it would have to halt food distribution in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where Israeli troops are conducting limited operations against the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
After seizing the Rafah corridor, Israel now controls all land crossings into Gaza, and human rights groups have accused Israeli forces of blocking access to the strip.
Dan Dieckhaus, response director for the United States Agency for International Development, said only 70 trucks entered Gaza on Wednesday. But Diekchaus said the sea pier proved vital, with 27 of those trucks passing through that corridor on Wednesday.
“In addition to the maritime district, all land passages need to be open and operate at maximum capacity and efficiency,” he told journalists. “Every moment that a passage is not open…represents a terrible human cost in this conflict.”
The maritime corridor begins in the island nation of Cyprus, which receives help from international aid groups and donor countries. The ships then transport this aid to a US-built floating dock miles off the coast of Gaza.
The U.S. military then transports that aid to a pier attached to a beach in Gaza, where United Nations and other aid workers take it to shore for distribution. The US has about 1,000 troops on the mission, but is not putting troops on the ground in Gaza.
The pier had complications. At least one truck was looted and a Hamas drone attack kilometers away from the pier led to the freezing of the aid convoy’s movements.
Cooper said force protection remains a priority and that the U.S. is coordinating with Israeli forces in a cell team inside Israel to oversee convoys in the area surrounding the pier.
And three U.S. soldiers deployed on the mission were recently injured but were not combat-related, according to Cooper, who described two of the injuries as a sprained ankle and a sore back.
Dieckhaus described operating in a “wartime environment” as one of the biggest challenges in getting aid to Gaza, whether from the docks or elsewhere.
“There are risks of war, there is active fighting,” he said. “Some of this assistance is reaching warehouses, some of it is being distributed immediately to those in need, but all of this requires constant maneuvering and these variables come and go.
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