WASHINGTON (NEWSnet/AP) — The U.N. World Food Program said Wednesday that it has distributed to some displaced Palestinians a “limited number” of high-energy biscuits that were shipped via a U.S.-built pier into Gaza.

It’s the first humanitarian aid from the new, but temporary, sea route to reach Palestinians in grave need.

The biscuits were part of the first shipments unloaded from the pier Friday, WFP spokesman Steve Taravella said. The U.S. Agency for International Development told The Associated Press that a total of 41 trucks loaded with aid from the more than $320 million pier have reached humanitarian organizations in Gaza.

“Aid is flowing” from the pier, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Wednesday in response to questions about aid deliveries. “It is not flowing at a rate that any of us are happy with.”

Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters Tuesday that he did not believe any of the aid from the pier had yet reached people in Gaza.

Sullivan said a day later that some aid had been delivered “specifically to the Palestinians who need it.”

American officials hope the pier at maximum capacity can bring the equivalent of 150 truckloads of aid to Gaza each day. That’s a fraction of the 600 truckloads of food, emergency nutritional treatments and other supplies that USAID says are needed for the people in Gaza, where famine threatens amid wartime destruction.

Israeli restrictions on land crossings and a surge in fighting have cut deliveries of food and fuel in Gaza to the lowest levels since the first months of the war, international officials say.

Humanitarian officials and the U.S. say the sea route is not a replacement for bringing aid through land crossings, and they have repeatedly called on Israel to allow delivery trucks through entry points and to ensure aid workers are safe from the Israeli military.

Follow NEWSnet on Facebook and X platform to get our headlines in your social feeds.

Copyright 2024 NEWSnet and The Associated Press. All rights reserved.