Biden warned that Gaza pier would undermine other aid routes
The U.S. Joint Logistics Over-The-Shore System (JLOTS) Mission During the Second World War II. The Inspector General Report
A U.S. official said the USAID staffer concerns about the project undercutting overall aid efforts were raised early in the process. USAID responded by adding enough staffing for the agency to address both the pier and the land routes simultaneously, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.
The U.S. military was unable to find a neutral country willing to do the job and Israel provided security, according to the report.
The pier was placed in central Gaza by the Pentagon. The WFP staffers told the watchdog that they believed the U.S. military chose that location due to better security for the pier and military itself.
The report said the United States had failed to honor commitments it made with the World Food Program to get the UN to agree to distribute supplies from the pier into Palestinian hands.
Sean Savett said that the project “had a real impact” on getting food to hungry Palestinian civilians.
High waves and bad weather repeatedly damaged the pier, and the U.N. World Food Program ended cooperation with the project after an Israeli rescue operation used an area nearby to whisk away hostages, raising concerns about whether its workers would be seen as neutral and independent in the conflict.
The goal of the US plan was to provide food to 1.5 million Gaza’s people for 90 days. It only brought in enough to feed half a million people for a month.
“Multiple USAID staff expressed concerns that the focus on using JLOTS would detract from the Agency’s advocacy for opening land crossings, which were seen as more efficient and proven methods of transporting aid into Gaza,” according to the inspector general report. “However, once the President issued the directive, the Agency’s focus was to use JLOTS as effectively as possible.”
But the $230 million military-run project known as the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore system, or JLOTS, would only operate for about 20 days. Aid groups pulled out of the project by July, ending a mission plagued by repeated weather and security problems that limited how much food and other emergency supplies could get to starving Palestinians.
In his State of the Union address in March, Biden plans to use a temporary pier to expedite aid to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The Joint Israeli-Hamas Operation in the Gaza Strip: The U.S. Government’s Implications on the War between Israel and Hamas
More than 40,000 Palestinians — many of them women and children — have been killed by Israeli forces in the war, according to Gaza health officials. The war was triggered when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people.
The U.S., along with Egypt, had been trying to get Israel and Hamas to agree to a cease-fire. While talks continued this week, mediators said they presented a proposal that bridges the gaps between the two sides. Israel and Hamas have yet to reach a deal.
The document also says repeated and often hurried evacuation orders have led to civilian harm. It states that the Israeli military has issued evacuated orders under unsafe conditions in quick succession and with no warning before operations begin. It says that hostilities posed major protection risks to those complying with orders to leave.
NPR has independently interviewed multiple civilians in Gaza who have described Israeli airstrikes hitting their area just hours after they were told to evacuate, forcing them to flee in haste and dangerous conditions.
The document says that the humanitarian zones are small slices of land that will be hard for Palestinians to stay in during a time of war. But Palestinians say that the spaces are crowded and squalid, with little access to clean water or bathrooms. Garbage piles up in these areas, leading to disease. Aid groups say it has become almost impossible to deliver aid to these areas.
According to the document, the US is concerned the Israeli military’s increasing eviction orders in Gaza in the last month have resulted in displacement ofPalestinians and diminished the size of the humanitarian zone for civilians.
On Thursday, Israel withdrew its orders to citizens of Gaza to leave and announced that Palestinian civilians would be allowed to return to their homes in central Gaza. Nadav Shoshani, a spokesman for the military, told NPR the area was declared a safe zone again after it was hit by a rocket and there was an Israeli soldier dead.
The Aug. 28 cable by the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, marked “sensitive but not classified” and addressed to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the State Department, contained an assessment by officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development on the effects of Israel’s evacuation orders on the Palestinian population.
The US government is working hard to increase assistance reaching the most vulnerable in Gaza, according to a statement from the US Agency for International Development.
