An American military ship carrying equipment to build a temporary dock in Gaza was on its way to the Mediterranean Sea on Sunday, three days after President Joe Biden announced plans to increase aid shipments by sea to the besieged sector. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are suffering from hunger.

The new batch of aid arrived in the final hours before the holy month of Ramadan, which could start as early as Sunday evening, depending on the sighting of the crescent moon. Hopes for reaching a new ceasefire by Ramadan faded days ago as negotiations apparently stalled.

The opening of the maritime corridor, along with airlifts by the United States, Jordan, and other countries, showed growing concern about the deadly humanitarian crisis in Gaza and a new willingness to bypass Israeli control over land shipments. Israel said it welcomes the maritime shipments and will inspect shipments headed to Gaza before they leave the adjacent Cyprus aggregation area.

But relief officials say air and sea deliveries cannot compensate for the shortage of land supply routes. The daily number of aid trucks entering Gaza by land over the past five months has been far below the 500 trucks that entered before the war.

Linda Roth, spokesperson for the partner organization World Central Kitchen, said a ship belonging to the Spanish aid organization Open Arms, carrying 200 tons of food aid, is expected to undertake a trial trip to test the corridor "as soon as possible." The ship remained in the Cypriot port of Larnaca in what Roth described as a "rapidly evolving and fluid situation."

Biden intensified his public criticisms of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he believes Netanyahu "harms Israel more than he helps it" in his approach to the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, which has now entered its sixth month.

Speaking on Saturday to MSNBC, the US president expressed his support for Israel's right to pursue Hamas after the fighters’ attack on southern Israel on October 7, but said Netanyahu "must pay more attention to the innocent lives lost." He added, “Another 30,000 Palestinians cannot die.”

Gaza's Ministry of Health said at least 31,045 Palestinians have been killed since the war began. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and fighters in its counts, but it says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government, and its figures from previous wars largely match those of UN experts and independent experts.

Human losses among Palestinians continued to rise. The Civil Defense Department said at least nine Palestinians, including children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a home in Gaza City on Saturday evening. Footage shared by a rescuer showed him placing the body of a deceased infant on a couch amid the rubble.

Elsewhere, the bodies of 15 people, including women and children, were transferred to the main hospital in Deir al-Balah city in central Gaza on Sunday, according to a reporter from the Associated Press. Their relatives said they were killed by Israeli artillery fire directed towards a Palestinian displaced persons camp in the coastal area near the southern city of Khan Yunis.

Israel rarely comments on specific incidents during the war. It affirms that Hamas is responsible for civilian casualties because the group operates from within civilian areas.

Meanwhile, US efforts began to establish a temporary dock in Gaza to deliver maritime shipments. The US Central Command said the first American military ship, the General Frank S. Besson, left a base in Virginia on Saturday and was heading to the eastern Mediterranean carrying construction equipment.

US officials said it is likely to take weeks before the dock is ready for operation.

The maritime corridor enjoys support from the European Union, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries. The European Commission said UN agencies and the Red Cross will play a role.

The ship in Cyprus is expected to take two to three days to reach an undisclosed location. The spokesperson for the World Central Kitchen said construction began on Sunday on the dock designated for the ship at an undisclosed location in Gaza.

A member of the charity said on X, formerly Twitter, that once the docked ship arrives in Gaza, the aid will be unloaded by crane, loaded onto trucks, and transported to northern Gaza, which has been largely cut off from aid shipments and was the primary focus of the Israeli military offensive.

The US and regional mediators, Egypt and Qatar, hoped to reach a six-week ceasefire by Ramadan, but Hamas demands guarantees that the temporary truce will lead to an end to hostilities.

The mediators hoped to ease some of the immediate crisis through a temporary ceasefire, which would have led to Hamas releasing some Israeli hostages, Israel releasing some Palestinian detainees, and allowing relief groups to deliver a significant influx of aid to Gaza.