The Pentagon said none of the Gaza aid delivered through the US-built dock had been distributed
Pentagon spokesman Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said in a press conference that no food and supplies were brought into the Gaza Strip through the temporary US-built dock during the first five days of operations. The movement has been distributed by aid organizations to Palestinians. press conference on Tuesday.
Gen. Ryder said 569 tons of aid had been delivered to the Gaza coast but those supplies had not yet been delivered by humanitarian organizations.
On Saturday, the crowd was hungry looted several World Food Program trucks Aid shipments were routed through the dock, causing the agency to temporarily suspend aid deliveries to the dock on Sunday and Monday.
General Ryder also said that, after discussions with Israel and the United Nations, alternative routes for safe movement of personnel and goods have been established. He said the aid is now being taken to warehouses for further distribution.
“Of course, we anticipate that aid will be distributed in the coming days if conditions allow,” he said.
The temporary dock is one of the few remaining entry points for aid shipments after Israel struck Rafah, southern Gaza, earlier this month in response to a Hamas rocket attack that killed four people. soldiers killed on May 5. Israel not only seized the Rafah crossing on the Gaza border. border with Egypt but also closed the Kerem Shalom border gate into Israel. Those are the two main entry points for truck convoys carrying ground aid.
According to UN data, although Israel has reopened Kerem Shalom, only 69 trucks entered Gaza through the area in the past two weeks. This number is much less than the number of aid trucks that passed through the two southern border crossings before the Israeli army entered Rafah. That number peaked at 340 trucks per day.
The 569 tons of cargo that have arrived at the dock so far are a fraction of the amount of aid brought into Gaza via land routes before Israel seized the Rafah crossing. The United Nations estimates that the trucks carrying food to Gaza each contain about 15 to 30 tons.
The dock system, worth an estimated $300 million, became operational on Thursday after being connected to the Mediterranean shore in central Gaza. On Friday, the first aid convoys began move to shore. So far, however, the operation has fallen short of its goal of bringing in 90 trucks per day and eventually increased to 150 trucks.
Gen. Ryder said that more aid is coming but the U.S. military is adopting a “crawl, walk, run” approach, addressing logistical hurdles and taking into account security conditions. “So I think you’ll see as we work together, the amount of aid will increase and the ability to distribute it will increase,” he said.
