USAID report reveals why Biden’s Gaza humanitarian pier ‘fell short’

(LONDON) — The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on Tuesday published its report into President Joe Biden’s troubled aid pier in the Gaza Strip, blaming a combination of weather and security challenges for its failures.

The Pentagon abandoned aid deliveries in July with the pier having faced repeated logistical and security issues since it began sending supplies ashore in mid-May. The project cost an estimated $230 million, USAID noted. Three American troops suffered non-combat injuries during its operation.

USAID’s report said that the pier — officially called the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore system, or JLOTS — was only able to operate for 20 days over its lifespan, far short of the 90 or so days planned.

The project was controversial from its inception. Before Biden announced the planned pier in his State of the Union address on Mar. 7, “multiple USAID staff expressed concerns that the focus on using JLOTS would detract from the agency’s advocacy for opening land crossings,” the report said.

Land crossings “were seen as more efficient and proven methods of transporting aid into Gaza,” it continued. “However, once the president issued the directive, the agency’s focus was to use JLOTS as effectively as possible.”

The concerns proved prescient and the agency acknowledged it “fell short of its goal of supplying aid to 500,000 or more Palestinians each month for three months and instead delivered enough aid to feed 450,000 for one month.”

“External factors” were to blame, it said, which “impaired USAID’s efforts to distribute humanitarian assistance to Gaza.”

These included Pentagon and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) security requirements which forced the pier to be positioned further from Gaza City than requested by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), which partnered with the administration on the project.

“A northern location would have enabled WFP to avoid the south-to-north land route where it had previously faced delays at IDF checkpoints as well as ‘self-distribution’ or looting of the aid,” the report said.

USAID noted “structural damage caused by rough weather and high seas” along with “security and access challenges” that “plagued aid distributions once on shore” contributed to ongoing issues.

“Overcrowded roads and limited safe, passable land routes also created significant challenges to moving aid from JLOTS to UN warehouses for distribution, including several instances where aid trucks were looted,” the report continued.

The fluctuating security situation in Gaza complicated the USAID mission, the agency said. On June 9, for example, the WFP suspended aid deliveries due to “security concerns and community misperceptions from disinformation that the pier had been used to assist the IDF in a military operation to free several hostages.”

The agency also reported difficulty in adjusting aid routes in a bid to minimize looting after the first two days of deliveries, during which “crowds improperly removed humanitarian aid from 12 of 26 WFP trucks.”

“WFP subsequently identified alternative routes to safely transport aid,” the report said. “However, Israeli authorities delayed approving new routes from the pier to the UN warehouse and prevented WFP from transporting additional aid from JLOTS for two more days.”