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About 492 tons of humanitarian aid were transported across the pier on Saturday, an unnamed US official told the Associated Press (AP) news agency after the floating dock was reinstalled on Gaza’s coast on Friday.

Around 1,000 US soldiers were involved in the construction of the $320 million pier, called “Trident Pier”. However, the pier was in use for barely more than a week before parts of it broke off in bad weather last month and it had to be towed to Israel for repairs.

Although the aid program was supposed to run until September, only 1,000 tons of food aid could be brought ashore during its duration.

Brad Cooper, deputy commander of the U.S. Central Command, told reporters on Friday that the goal is now to bring 450 tons of food and other aid across the pier to Gaza every two days.

Aid groups have said that only the reopening of land border crossings with Gaza – which have been closed by the Israeli military – can enable the rapid delivery of urgently needed quantities of fuel, food, clean water and medical supplies to the war zone.