The US military has published photos showing a floating pier being built in the Mediterranean Sea to help increase humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza.

Logistics vessels and personnel can be seen assembling the pier from steel segments, next to a US Navy ship.

Costing about $320m (£255m), the pier and a causeway attached to the shore should be operational by early May.

The goal is to deliver aid equivalent to as many as two million meals a day to Gaza to help avert a famine there.

“Right now, you’re seeing construction of that floating, temporary pier, and then, you’ll start to see construction of the causeway,” US defence department spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters in Washington on Monday.

“Eventually, that causeway will be… pushed into the coastline and secured by the [Israel Defense Forces],” she added.

Satellite images published by Planet Labs meanwhile appeared to show the pier was being built next to the USNS Benavidez, a Military Sealift Command roll-on/roll-off ship, 11km (7 miles) north-west of the coast of northern Gaza.

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