Humanitarian aid could begin arriving in Gaza by sea from Cyprus as soon as this weekend, Ursula von der Leyen has said.

“We are very close to opening this corridor, hopefully this Sunday,” said the president of the European Commission following a visit to the Cypriot port of Larnaca.

It came as Lord Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, warned that a US-led plan to build a temporary port on the shores of the besieged enclave to facilitate aid deliveries could take months to come to fruition.

Britain is to work with Washington on its “emergency mission” to get more aid into Gaza.

The temporary harbour “will take months to stand up”, Lord Cameron said, as he urged Israel to “promise today” to open its functioning Ashdod Port in the meantime, to where aid could be shipped from Cyprus and driven into Gaza.

The Foreign Secretary said it was “incredibly frustrating” that Israel was not taking steps to allow more aid in.

“Right now there’s a crisis. We need 500 trucks a day or more going into Gaza,” he told BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme on Friday.

“In the last five days, we’ve been averaging 123 trucks a day. That’s not good enough and that needs to be fixed now.

“And that can be fixed if Israel opens more crossing points, if they allow more UN staff into Gaza to help process the aid and get it round the different bits of Gaza. And they could also do things like full resumption of the water and the electricity that goes into north and south Gaza.

“We’ve set out these points repeatedly and it’s incredibly frustrating that these things haven’t happened when you think of the terrible humanitarian situation in Gaza.”

Mr Biden used his State of the Union address on Thursday night to warn Israel that it cannot use aid as a “bargaining chip” in its fight against Hamas.

Aid officials have warned for months of looming famine in Gaza amid food shortages caused by border closures.

The UK will rule “in the coming days” if Israel is breaking international humanitarian law, according to the Foreign Secretary, who said the judgment would dictate whether Britain stops arms sales to the country.

The UK’s contribution to the maritime corridor is not expected to involve the deployment of British personnel.

‘Dire’ situation

Downing Street said on Friday the UK had been involved in planning and surveying for the pontoon and would now be “working with partners to operationalise our maritime aid corridor from Cyprus”.

In a joint statement with the US, the European Commission, the UAE and Cyprus, the UK described the situation in Gaza as “dire”.

According to the statement, Cyprus had taken the lead on establishing a mechanism for sending aid to Gaza by sea securely, which the partners would now build on to deliver “significant aid”, working in conjunction with the UN’s senior humanitarian and reconstruction co-ordinator for Gaza.

The statement said: “The delivery of humanitarian assistance directly to Gaza by sea will be complex, and our nations will continue to assess and adjust our efforts to ensure we deliver aid as effectively as possible.

“This maritime corridor can, and must, be part of a sustained effort to increase the flow of humanitarian aid and commercial commodities into Gaza through all possible routes.”

British aid packages have previously been air-dropped into Gaza in a joint operation with the Jordanian military, and the Government has continued to work on finding alternative routes for supplies to reach the territory.

Ministers have also called for a “humanitarian pause” in the fighting to enable aid to get into Gaza and hostages held by Hamas to be released.