US says building Gaza port to take 'likely up to 60 days'

By Phil Stewart and Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A temporary port system that the U.S. is seeking to build to speed up aid to Gaza will take "likely up to 60 days" to complete and involve some 1,000 troops, a Pentagon spokesperson said on Friday.

President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that the U.S. military will build a temporary port in the coming weeks on Gaza's Mediterranean coast to enable delivery of humanitarian aid by sea.

Although the massive U.S. military operation will involve both soldiers and sailors, the U.S. military will not be deploying troops ashore -- even temporarily to anchor the dock to the beach, said Pentagon spokesperson Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder.

Once operational, the port system would allow delivery about 2 million meals to Gazans daily, Ryder said.

By comparison, the U.S. military has delivered a total of about 124,000 meals during four airdrops in the past week. The latest airdrop on Friday delivered about 11,500 meals, the U.S. military said.

It is unclear who would secure the landing site for the port system, and Ryder said only that Washington was working through the details with partner nations including Israel.

The spokesperson said there was no cost estimate yet. He said the U.S. was also talking to NGOs, aid groups and the United Nations on how aid will be delivered.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler and Daniel Wallis)