WASHINGTON: The White House said on Sunday that a US-made pier meant to boost aid to Gaza would become operational in a few weeks but cannot replace land routes with trucks as the best way to feed people in the territory.

Israel’s more than six-month war against Hamas in Gaza has triggered a humanitarian crisis, and it faces growing pressure to enable more aid deliveries as the UN warns famine is imminent.

The Pentagon said last week that the US military had begun building a pier to speed up aid deliveries.

“It will take probably two to three weeks before we can see an operation,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Sunday on ABC News.

Kirby said the floating platform to bring more food and other essentials to Gaza will help, but it has limits.

“Nothing can replace, quite frankly, the ground routes and the trucks that are getting in,” Kirby said.

After the killing of seven aid workers in an Israel strike on April 1, which drew international outrage, President Joe Biden bluntly told Israel to change the way it is waging the war.

He said it was imperative that Israel let in more aid and take more pains to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties.

Biden said continued US aid to Israel would depend on such changes being made.

Kirby said Israel is now, in fact, letting in more trucks, including in the particularly hard-hit north of Gaza.

“The Israelis have started to meet the commitments President Biden asked them to meet,” he said.

Plans for the pier were first announced by President Biden in early March, as Israel was being accused of holding up aid deliveries on land.

Kirby also said Israel had agreed to listen to US concerns and thoughts before it launched an invasion of the border city of Rafah in Gaza.

“They’ve assured us that they won’t go into Rafah until we’ve had a chance to really share our perspectives and concerns with them,” Kirby told ABC.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to visit the region next week and Kirby said he would continue pressing for a temporary ceasefire that Washington wants to last for at least six weeks.

A Hamas official said a delegation will visit Cairo on Monday for talks to secure a ceasefire.

RIYADH: Member nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council can play a pivotal role in developing African economies, a special meeting of the World Economic Forum in Riyadh was told on Sunday.

Economic relations between Africa and the GCC are set to grow significantly in the coming years, economists have said, driven by mutual interests in economic diversification, investment and sustainable development.

Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso, the Republic of Congo’s international cooperation minister, said countries in central and western Africa had traditionally looked to Western powers, such as the US, France and the UK, for assistance with their development but were increasingly looking to forge links with GCC countries.

“It’s a good opportunity and position to start to work on this cooperation with (countries such as) Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain. They can help (African) countries to develop their economies and infrastructure projects,” he said.

“We’re not looking for an equal economy (with GCC states), but we’d like to build some bridges toward partnerships between our countries, to promote the public-private partnership.”

Boitumelo Mosako, CEO at the Development Bank of Southern Africa, told the panel that the GCC and African Union were founded on the same date, which coincides with Africa Day.

The GCC and the Organization of African Unity, which was replaced by the African Union, were both founded on May 25.

This was a symbol of the strong partnerships that had evolved between Africa and GCC countries, especially in direct trade, Mosako said.

“When it comes to infrastructure, that is where I see the greatest opportunity. As we all know, (Africa) is a continent with an infrastructure backlog, but we are one with aspirations of implementing an African free-trade agreement.”

But in order for this to be achieved, infrastructure projects had to be built quickly, which would not only benefit African economies but also global partners as Africa’s exports to those countries would be able to increase exponentially, Mosako said.

Highlighting opportunities in energy investment from GCC countries, she added: “We have seen this in South Africa, where GCC companies have partnered local entities as part of a renewable energy program, so it’s not something far-fetched, it’s actually happening. It’s an opportunity to close the energy gap for the continent.”

Ousmane Dione, vice president for the Middle East and North Africa at the World Bank, said that at its shortest distance, there were only 26 km between Africa and the GCC, but there was a much bigger metaphorical gap in investment from the GCC states into Africa, which he called a “land of opportunity.”

He said that by 2035, there would be 430 million young Africans coming into the labor market competing for just 100 million jobs if current policies remained in place.

This could either be a “demographic liability or a demographic dividend” depending on how other countries viewed it, he said.

“I see the GCC countries really being a part of what will be the future of that relationship, in terms of a partnership.”