The US military said on Friday that aid deliveries via a temporary pier in Gaza, aimed at ramping up emergency humanitarian assistance to the Strip, have begun, AFP reported.
"Today at approximately 9:00 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 tons of aid expected to enter the Gaza Strip in the coming days.
Photographs released by CENTCOM showed humanitarian aid being lifted onto a barge in the nearby Israeli port of Ashdod.
Construction of the two pieces, the floating platform and the causeway, was completed last week, but weather had delayed the final movement.
President Joe Biden, in his State of the Union address in March, announced the plans for the temporary pier on the coast of Gaza that would receive large shipments carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelter and provide aid to the Strip.
A day later, Biden said that Israel will provide security for the port he plans to build off the coast of Gaza that would provide aid to the Strip.
The Biden administration has said the corridor will increase the amount of aid getting in, but the pier is not meant to replace the entry points by road, which are far more efficient for bringing aid in quickly.
Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, the deputy commander of US Central Command, told reporters there are hundreds of tons of aid ready to be delivered once the corridor is up and running, and thousands of tons in the pipeline.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)