A new sea route for Gaza aid is on track, USAID says

FITZGERALD, Ga. — On-the-ground preparations are on track in Gaza for humanitarian workers to be ready to deliver food, treatment for children and other urgent assistance by early or mid-May when the American military expects to finish building a floating pier to receive the shipments, a U.S. Agency for International Development official said Friday.

Ramping up the delivery of aid on a planned U.S.-backed sea route will be gradual as aid groups test the distribution and security arrangements for relief workers, the USAID official told The Associated Press.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity over security concerns for work done in a conflict zone. They were some of the agency’s first comments on the status of preparations for the Biden administration’s $320 million Gaza pier project, for which USAID is helping coordinate on-the-ground security and distribution.

Meanwhile, at a factory in rural Georgia on Friday, USAID Administrator Samantha Power pointed to the food crises in Gaza and other parts of the world as she announced a $200 million investment aimed at increasing production of emergency nutritional paste for starving children under 5.

Power spoke to factory workers, peanut farmers and local dignitaries sitting among pallets of the paste at the Mana nonprofit in Fitzgerald. It is one of two factories in the U.S. that produces the nutritional food, which is used in clinical settings and made from ground peanuts, powdered milk, sugar and oil, ready to eat in plastic pouches resembling large ketchup packets.

“This effort, this vision meets the moment,” Power said. “And it could not be more timely, more necessary or more important.”

Power said the U.N. has called for 400 metric tons of the nutritional paste in the Palestinian territory. USAID expects to provide a quarter of that, she said.

USAID is coordinating with the U.N. World Food Program and other humanitarian partners and governments on security and distribution for the pier project, while U.S. military forces finish building it. President Joe Biden announced the project in early March.

Globally, she said at the Georgia factory, the treatment made there “will save untold lives, millions of lives.”

U.S. Central Command said in a statement Friday that offshore assembly of the floating pier has been temporarily paused due to high winds and sea swells, which caused unsafe conditions for soldiers. The partially built pier and the military vessels involved have gone to Israel’s Port of Ashdod, where the work will continue.

A U.S. official said the high seas will delay the installation for several days, possibly until later next week. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operation details, said the pause could last longer if the bad weather continues because military personnel and divers have to get into the water for the final installation.

The United Nations has been muted about its role in the aid deliveries.

“We want to see more land operations. This is a sea operation,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Wednesday. “We are working with them, but obviously we have certain parameters that need to be respected.”