Gaza aid still leaving Cyprus by sea while landing pier fixed, says official 

Humanitarian aid for Gaza is continuing to leave Cyprus by sea and will be held in floating storage off the coast of the enclave while a US military-built pier undergoes repairs, a Cypriot government official said on Thursday, Reuters has reported.

Malnutrition is widespread in Gaza after eight months of war and the UN said yesterday that the amount of aid entering the enclave had fallen by two-thirds since Israel began military operations in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah.

The US military announced earlier in the week that a purpose-built jetty it anchored off Gaza’s coast to receive aid by sea was being temporarily removed after part of the structure broke off, two weeks after it started operating.

Cyprus government spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis said that the offloading of aid for the Palestinian enclave had slowed down but the sea corridor had not ceased operating altogether.

“The mechanism surrounding how the floating pier works allows for the possibility of floating storage off Gaza, with offloading to resume when conditions allow,” explained Letymbiotis, blaming the problem on rough seas.

The pier was announced by US President Joe Biden in March and involved the military assembling the floating structure off the Palestinian enclave’s Mediterranean coast. Estimated to cost $320 million for the first 90 days and involving about 1,000 US service men and women, it went into operation two weeks ago.

Aid from France was expected to depart for Gaza from Cyprus on Thursday, while 3,000 tons of US aid will leave early next week, said Letymbiotis. The UAE, Britain, the US, Romania, Italy, the European Mechanism for Civil Protection, the World Food Programme and the International Organisation for Migration have already donated aid destined for the pier, he added. Cyprus has also received interest from Japan and Singapore, as well as other EU member states.

In Washington, a Pentagon spokesperson said that a portion of the pier had separated and it would be towed to the Israeli port of Ashdod for repairs. According to Letymbiotis, the US had indicated that the problem would be fixed in a few days and that the pier could “possibly” resume operations by the middle of next week.

Eleven ship-shuttles of aid have left Cyprus since the operation started, with enough already distributed in Gaza to “provide food to tens of thousands of non-combatants for a month”, Letymbiotis said. “The aim of offering humanitarian aid to 500,000 people a month is possible.”

READ: Hamas says US pier provides cover for supporting occupation state with weapons