More aid getting to people in Gaza after US aid project picks up pace

A six-day-old US pier project in Gaza is starting to get more aid to Palestinians in need, but conditions are challenging, US officials said on Thursday. 

That reflects the larger problems bringing food and other supplies to starving people in the besieged territory.

The floating pier had a troubled launch, with crowds overrunning some of the first trucks coming from the new US-led sea route and taking its contents over the weekend. One man in the crowd was shot dead in still unexplained circumstances. It led to a two-day suspension of aid distribution.

The US military worked with the UN and Israeli officials to select safer alternate routes for trucks coming from the pier, Vice Admiral Brad Cooper told reporters on Thursday.

As a result, the pier on Wednesday accounted for 27 of the 70 total trucks of aid that the UN was able to round up from all land and sea crossings into Gaza for distribution to civilians, the US said.

That's a fraction of the 150 truckloads of food, emergency nutrition treatment and other supplies that US officials aim to bring in when the sea route is working at maximum capacity.

Gaza needs 600 trucks entering each day, according to the US Agency for International Development, to curb a famine that the heads of USAID and the UN World Food Programme have said has begun in the north and to keep it from spreading south.

Only one of the 54 trucks that came from the pier on Tuesday and Wednesday encountered any security issues on their way to aid warehouses and distribution points, US officials said. They called the issues “minor” but gave no details.

A deepening Israeli offensive in the southern city of Rafah has made it impossible for aid shipments to get through the crossing there, which is a key source of