GAZA CITY, Palestine

A US floating pier on Gaza’s beach has failed to ease the territory’s humanitarian crisis, local authorities said on Monday.

“This pier is useless,” Salama Marouf, the head of Gaza’s government media office, said in a statement.

“Humanitarian aid worth 120 trucks have been channeled through the pier since it was built” in mid-May, he added.

The Palestinian official held the US responsible for the consequences of the current humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

He appealed to the international community to immediately act “to ensure the entry of humanitarian aid into all areas of the Gaza Strip.”

On Saturday, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced the resumption of aid delivery to Gaza via the temporary pier, which was reestablished after it broke apart in rough seas late last month.

Israel has imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving the territory’s entire population on the verge of starvation.

Tel Aviv has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

More than 37,100 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and nearly 84,700 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar