In Gaza, UN starts to move tons of aid from US-built pier

Humanitarian workers have started moving tons of aid that piled up at a United States-built pier off the Gaza coast to warehouses in the besieged territory, the United Nations said Saturday, an important step as the U.S. considers whether to resume pier operations after yet another pause due to heavy seas.

It was not clear when the aid might reach Palestinians in Gaza, where experts have warned of the high risk of famine as the war between Israel and Hamas militants is in its ninth month. This is the first time trucks have moved aid from the pier since the U.N.’s World Food Program suspended operations there due to security concerns on June 9.

Millions of pounds of aid have piled up. In just the last week, more than 10 million pounds were moved ashore, according to the U.S. military.

A WFP spokesperson, Abeer Etefa, told The Associated Press this is a one-time operation until the beach is cleared of the aid and is being done to avoid spoilage. Further U.N. operations at the pier depend on U.N. security assessments, Etefa added. The U.N. is investigating whether the pier was used in an Israeli military operation last month to rescue three hostages.

If WFP trucks successfully bring the aid to warehouses inside Gaza, that could affect the U.S. military’s decision whether to reinstall the pier, which was removed due to weather Friday. U.S. officials said they were considering not reinstalling the pier because of the possibility that the aid would not be picked up.

Even if the U.N. decides to keep transporting aid from the pier into Gaza, lawlessness around humanitarian convoys will be a further challenge to distribution. The convoys have come under attack in Gaza. While most aid deliveries come by land, restrictions around border crossings and on what items can enter Gaza have further hurt a population that was already dependent on humanitarian aid before the war.

The June 9 pause at the pier came after the Israeli military used a nearby area to fly out hostages after their rescue in a raid that killed more than 270 Palestinians , prompting a U.N. review over concerns that aid workers’ safety and neutrality may have been compromised.

Meanwhile Saturday, a senior Biden administration official said the U.S. has presented new language to intermediaries Egypt and Qatar aimed at trying to jump-start the stalled Israel-Hamas negotiations. The official, who requested anonymity to discuss the effort that the White House has yet to publicly unveil, said the revised text focuses on negotiations that are to start between Israel and Hamas during the first phase of a three-phase deal that President Joe Biden laid out nearly a month ago.

The first phase calls for a “full and complete cease-fire,” a withdrawal of Israeli forces from all densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of a number of hostages, including women, the elderly and the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

The proposal called for the parties to negotiate the terms of the second phase during the 42 days of phase one. Under the current proposal, Hamas could release all the remaining men, both civilians and soldiers. In return, Israel could free an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees. The releases won’t occur until “sustainable calm” takes effect and all Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza.

The new proposed language, which the official did not detail, aims to find a workaround of differences between Israel and Hamas about the parameters of the negotiations between phase one and phase two.

Hamas wants those negotiations centered on the number and identity of Palestinian prisoners who will be released from Israeli jails in exchange for remaining living Israeli soldiers and male hostages held in Gaza, the official said. Israel wants the negotiations to be much broader and include the demilitarization of the territory controlled by Hamas.

More than 37,800 Palestinians have been killed in the war since it began with Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its toll. The ministry said the bodies of 40 people killed by Israeli strikes had been brought to local hospitals over the past 24 hours.

A child was among the wounded being treated Saturday after an Israeli strike on the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

The Oct. 7 Hamas attack killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and another 250 people were taken hostage.

Israeli forces have been battling Palestinian militants in an eastern part of Gaza City over the last week. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled their homes, according to the U.N.

“It’s like the first weeks of the invasion,” one resident, Mahmoud al-Masry said of the intensity of the fighting. “Many people were killed. Many houses were destroyed. They strike anything moving.”

The Israeli military acknowledged an operation against Hamas fighters in Shijaiyah and on Saturday noted “close-quarters combat.”

Elsewhere, thousands of Palestinians who remained in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah fled Friday for Muwasi, a crowded coastal tent camp designated by the Israeli army as a safe zone. Some told the AP they evacuated because Israeli gunfire and missiles had come close to where they were sheltering.

Over 1.3 million Palestinians have fled Rafah since Israel’s incursion into the city in early May, while aid groups warn there are no safe places to go.

With the heat in Gaza reaching over 32 degrees Celsius (89 Fahrenheit), many displaced people have found tents unbearable. The territory has been without electricity since Israel cut off power as part of the war, and Israel also stopped pumping drinking water to the enclave.

“Death is better than it, it is a grave,” said Barawi Bakroun, who was displaced from Gaza City, as others fanned themselves with pieces of cardboard.