Several USAID employees cautioned that utilizing the makeshift dock would divert attention away from diplomatic attempts to persuade Israel to relax its prohibitions on relief supplies over land to Gaza, the Palestinian territory.
According to a watchdog investigation, US President Joe Biden disregarded staff members’ cautions and approved a floating pier off the shore of Gaza that was supposed to make aid deliveries easier but kept failing.
In a damning report released on Tuesday, USAID’s Office of the Inspector General stated that several officials within the US humanitarian aid agency, USAID, expressed concerns that using the temporary pier would divert attention from diplomatic efforts to pressure Israel to remove its restrictions on overland aid deliveries.
It stated that “many USAID staff expressed concerns” that the agency’s efforts to open land crossings in Israel and Egypt—which were seen to be “more efficient and proven avenues for delivering aid to Gaza”—would be compromised if attention was focused on the pier, also known as Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS).
In his March State of the Union speech, Biden declared that he had given the go-ahead for JLOTS construction.
Following months of diplomatic haggling that failed to persuade Israel to relax its limitations on the distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza via its border crossings with Gaza, the statement was made.
The inspector general’s office stated, “Once the President issued the directive, the Agency’s focus was to use JLOTS as effectively as possible.”
a string of catastrophes
After a string of mishaps that required the pier to be regularly hauled to an Israeli port for repairs, the US military declared the pier’s mission “complete” on July 17.
The report held “external factors” accountable for hindering USAID’s capacity to deliver aid to Gaza through the temporary dock when it is built in May.
The Pentagon and Israeli military’s “security requirements took precedence,” according to the statement, over the agency’s attempts to use the dock to deliver food and other relief to Gaza.
“In addition, issues related to operating in a conflict environment were compounded by weather, security, and humanitarian access challenges that affected how much assistance could enter the region through the maritime corridor and safely reach partner distribution centres in Gaza,” added the statement.
Because of this, the watchdog said that the pier was only operational for 20 of the scheduled 90 days. It also noted that the pier did not achieve the US government’s target of supplying enough help to feed 500,000 people every month, or 1.5 million people over a three-month period.
In the end, just 450,000 people’s worth of food was supplied for a month. All rights reserved.
