Aid for the Gaza Strip has been loaded onto a ship in Cyprus in what is expected to be the first cargo to be delivered using a US pier built to expedite supplies to the besieged enclave.
Containers were being stacked on the US-flagged Sagamore, docked at the port of Larnaca, on Wednesday.
Some containers going to the ship were labelled as aid from the United Arab Emirates.
"We are completing the loading of aid onto a US vessel now in Larnaca, and once the platform is in place, this part of the process (shipment) can commence," Konstantinos Letymbiotis, a Cyprus government spokesman, said.
It was unclear when the vessel would depart.
The Pentagon said on Tuesday that it had completed construction of the pier and was hoping to move it off the coast of Gaza later this week.
Hamas battled Israeli troops on the outskirts of the Gaza Strip's crowded southern city of Rafah on Wednesday as the US said it had held up a shipment of powerful bombs to Israel to prevent Palestinian civilian casualties.
The US, which aims to stave off a full Israeli invasion of Rafah, said it believes a revised Hamas ceasefire proposal may lead to a breakthrough in an impasse in negotiations, with talks resuming in Cairo on Wednesday.
Israeli tanks rolled into Gaza at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Tuesday, cutting off a vital aid route and the only exit to allow wounded patients to leave.
A UN official said no fuel or aid had entered the Gaza Strip due to the military operation, a situation "disastrous for the humanitarian response" in Gaza where more than half the population is suffering catastrophic hunger.
Israel has threatened a major assault on Rafah to defeat thousands of Hamas fighters it says are holed up there.
But the city is also a refuge for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have fled combat further north in the coastal enclave following Israel's previous evacuation orders.
A senior US government official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, said last month that aid coming off the US pier will need to pass through Israeli checkpoints on land.
That is despite the aid having already been inspected by Israel in Cyprus prior to being shipped to Gaza.
The prospect of checkpoints raises questions about possible delays even after aid reaches shore.
The United Nations has long complained of obstacles to getting aid in and distributing it throughout Gaza.
The United Nations is in talks with the United States about the distribution of aid once it comes off the pier.
A UN spokesperson had no update on Wednesday when asked about the status of the talks.
"We have determined a number of parameters under which the UN family is able and in a position to receive and distribute the goods," the UN humanitarian and reconstruction co-ordinator for Gaza Sigrid Kaag said last month.
"But there are also a number of international NGOs that are considering participating in the distribution of goods that come via the maritime corridor."
Kaag said some of the parameters being discussed included the ability of the UN to distribute aid all over Gaza and for the UN to ensure its neutrality by remaining an appropriate distance from the Israeli military, which will provide security and logistics support for the pier.
"We're hopeful that we're getting there," she said of the talks two weeks ago.
The UN has also been adamant that maritime access was no substitute for land deliveries, which needed to remain the focus of aid operations in Gaza.
Israel's military campaign against Hamas, in response to Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, has devastated the tiny Gaza Strip, where aid agencies warn its 2.3 million people are facing imminent famine.
Cyprus opened a sea corridor in March to ship aid directly to Gaza, where deliveries via land have been severely disrupted by border closures and Israel's military operations.
US-based charity World Food Kitchen used the route twice before seven of its workers were killed in an Israeli air strike on April 1.
Australian Associated Press
