Watchdog Report: US Aid Agency Recommended Against Building US Pier for Gaza Supplies
The makeshift Gaza aid pier faced numerous challenges, including weather and security issues that had been cautioned by government officials before the mission commenced.
President Joe Biden advocated for a maritime route to deliver humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip despite objections from U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) officials, as per a new government watchdog report.
The inspector general report highlighted that, contrary to the advice of USAID officials, Biden announced the plan to open a makeshift aid delivery pier on the Gaza shoreline during his March 7 State of the Union address.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) managed the construction and operation of the maritime aid route, known as a Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) mission.
Once the supplies were transferred over the makeshift pier onto the Gaza shoreline, USAID coordinated the aid delivery efforts.
Before Biden’s address, senior USAID officials had discussed a maritime route for aid deliveries to Gaza but preferred increasing humanitarian aid deliveries via overland routes.
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Concerns were raised by multiple USAID staff that focusing on JLOTS would divert attention from opening more efficient land crossings in Israel and Egypt for delivering aid to Gaza, according to the report.
The report mentions that the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) also explored a commercial option to establish a pier on the Gaza shoreline.
Following Biden’s address, WFP shifted its focus to coordinating with the DOD’s JLOTS pier mission.
The day after the Nuseirat raid, the WFP paused its participation in the JLOTS pier mission.
Without support from the U.N. agency, “thousands of pallets of aid from the JLOTS operation piled up on the Gaza beach,” the inspector general’s report states.
WFP contractors later retrieved 8,860 aid pallets from the JLOTS operation area for further distribution but did not resume wider participation with the JLOTS mission.
