A pier built by the US military to bring aid to the Gaza Strip has been removed due to weather to protect it, and the United States is considering not re-installing it unless the aid begins flowing out into the population again, US officials say,
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
While the US military has helped deliver desperately needed food through the pier, the vast majority of it is still sitting in the adjacent storage yard and that area is almost full.
Aid agencies have had difficulty moving the food to areas further into Gaza where it is most needed because the humanitarian convoys have come under attack.
The United Nations, which has the widest reach in delivering aid to starving Palestinians, has not been distributing food and other emergency supplies arriving through the pier since June 9.
The pause came after the Israeli military used an area near the pier to fly out hostages after their rescue in a raid that killed more than 270 Palestinians, prompting a UN security review over concerns that aid workers' safety and neutrality may have compromised.
While always meant to be temporary and never touted as a complete solution to the problems getting humanitarian aid into Gaza, US President Joe Biden's $US230 million ($A345 million) project has faced a series of setbacks since aid first rolled ashore May 17 and has been criticised by relief groups and congressional Republicans as a costly distraction.
The pier has been used to get 8.6 million kilograms of food into Gaza but has faced multiple setbacks.
Rough seas damaged the pier just days into its initial operations, forcing the military to remove it temporarily for repairs and then reinstall it.
Heavy seas on Friday forced the military to remove it again and take it to the Israeli port at Ashdod.
Several US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the military could reinstall the pier once the bad weather passes in the coming days but the final decision on whether to reinstall it has not been made.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces pressed their incursion deeper into two northern and southern areas of the Gaza Strip on Friday and Palestinian health officials said tank shelling in Rafah killed at least 11 people.
Residents and Hamas media said tanks advanced further west into the Shakoush neighbourhood of Rafah, forcing thousands of displaced people there to leave their tent camps and head northward to the nearby Khan Younis.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment.
Since May 7, tanks have advanced in several districts of Rafah, and forces remained in control of the entire border line with Egypt and the Rafah crossing, the only gateway for most of Gaza's 2.3 million people with the outside world.
One resident, who spoke to Reuters via a chat app, said some bulldozers in the Shakoush area were piling up sand for Israeli tanks to station behind.
"Some families live in the area of the raid and are now besieged by the occupation forces," he told Reuters.
"The situation there is very dangerous and many families are leaving towards Khan Younis, even from the Mawasi area as things became unsafe for them," said the man, who moved northward overnight.
More than eight months into Israel's air and ground war in Gaza triggered by the Hamas-led cross-border attack on October 7, the armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad continue to stage attacks on Israeli forces operating in areas over which the army said it had gained control months ago.
The Palestinian groups sometimes still fire rockets into Israeli territory.
with Reuters and DPA
Australian Associated Press
