JERUSALEM — Humanitarian workers have started moving tons of aid that piled up at a U.S.-built pier off the Gaza coast to warehouses in the besieged Palestinian territory, the United Nations said Saturday, an important step as Washington considers whether to resume pier operations after yet another pause because of heavy seas.

It wasn’t clear when the aid might reach Palestinians in Gaza, where experts have warned of the high risk of famine as the Israel-Hamas war is in its ninth month. This is the first time trucks have moved aid from the pier since the World Food Program, a U.N. agency, suspended operations there because of security concerns June 9.

WFP spokesperson Abeer Etefa said this is a one-time operation until the beach is cleared of the aid and is being done to avoid spoilage. Further U.N. operations at the pier depend on security assessments, Etefa said.

If WFP trucks successfully bring the aid to warehouses inside Gaza, that could affect the U.S. military’s decision on whether to reinstall the pier, which was removed because of adverse weather Friday. U.S. officials said they were considering not reinstalling it because of the possibility that the aid would not be picked up.

Meanwhile, Saturday, a senior Biden administration official said the U.S. has presented new language to intermediaries Egypt and Qatar aimed at trying to jump-start stalled Israel- Hamas negotiations.

The official, who requested anonymity to discuss the effort, said the revised text focuses on negotiations that are to start between Israel and Hamas during the first phase of a three-phase deal that President Joe Biden laid out nearly a month ago.

The first phase calls for a “full and complete cease-fire,” a withdrawal of Israeli forces from all densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of a number of hostages, including women, older people and the wounded, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

The proposal calls for the parties to negotiate the terms of the second phase during the 42 days of phase one. The new proposed language, which the official didn’t detail, aims to find a workaround of differences between Israel and Hamas about the parameters of the negotiations between phase one and phase two.

Hamas wants negotiations centered on the number and identity of Palestinian prisoners to be released from Israeli jails in exchange for remaining living Israeli soldiers and male hostages held in Gaza, the official said. Israel wants negotiations to be broader and include the demilitarization of the territory controlled by Hamas.

More than 37,800 Palestinians have been killed in the war since it began with Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry said the bodies of 40 people killed by Israeli strikes had been brought to local hospitals over the previous 24 hours.

The Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel killed some 1,200 people.