The USAID pier and land route failures in the aftermath of the World Food Program’s 2003 Gaza Pier-to-Land Route Closure
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 report stated that the U.S. military was not able to find a neutral country that was willing to do the job.
Instead, however, the Pentagon placed the pier in central Gaza. WFP staffers told the watchdog that it was their understanding that the U.S. military chose that location because of the better security.
The report says the United States failed to honor commitments it had made with the World Food Program to get the United Nations agency to take part in distributing supplies from the pier into Palestinian hands.
Sean Savett said Tuesday that the project had an 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 U.S. sea route and pier was to give 1.5 million people in Gaza food for 90 days. It fell short, bringing in enough to feed about 450,000 people for a month before shutting down.
“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. The focus of the Agency after the President issued the directive was to use JLOTS as effectively as possible.
The system, known as the Joint Logistic Over-the-Shore system, would only work 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 bring aid to the besieged Palestinian territory.
The Gaza Conflict Between Israel and Hamas, and the U.S. as a Framework for a Resolution of the Security Council Constraints
Over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war by Israeli forces, 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 Qatar and Egypt, has been trying to inch Israel and Hamas closer to a cease-fire deal to eventually end the war in Gaza. According to the mediators, the proposal they presented bridged the gaps between the two sides. Israel and Hamas have yet to reach a deal.
“The continuation of this pace of evacuation orders could debilitate remaining humanitarian operations in the enclave and, as a result, continued assistance to the 2.1 million people in dire need,” the document says.
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 “humanitarian zones” — which the document says have “long been problematic” — are small slices of land that the Israeli military says will be safe for Palestinians to shelter from airstrikes and receive humanitarian aid. Palestinians say that there is little access to clean water or a bathroom in the spaces. Garbage is piled up in these areas. Meanwhile, aid groups also say it has become near-impossible to deliver aid to these areas.
The document says that the US is concerned that the Israeli military has increased the number of orders for Gazans to leave in the past month, and that this has caused the displacement of Palestinians and diminished the size of the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone.
On Thursday, Israel announced that Palestinians could return to their homes in central Gaza, a day after the U.S. sent a memo to Israel saying it no longer deems it necessary to evacuate people from the area. A spokesman for the Israeli military, Nadav Shoshani, told NPR it declared the area a safe zone again following operations thwarting militant rocket launchers and retrieving an Israeli hostage and the body of a soldier.
The Aug. 28 cable from the Embassy in Jerusalem contains an assessment by the U.S. Agency for International Development of the effects on Israel from their decision to evacuate.
USAID said in a statement to NPR that while the agency does not comment on internal documents, “The humanitarian conditions in Gaza are incredibly dire, and the U.S. government is working relentlessly to increase assistance reaching the most vulnerable.”