The Biden administration swept aside objections about the harmful effects its military pier in Gaza would have on aid delivery efforts in the project’s planning stages, a damning new report from a government watchdog finds.
According to a report published Tuesday by the agency watchdog for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), administration staff and the World Food Programme (WFP) raised a number of concerns about the pier, known as JLOTS — but were often overruled after U.S. officials consulted with Israeli forces.
This includes concerns raised by multiple USAID staff who said “the focus on using JLOTS would detract from the Agency’s advocacy to open land crossings in Israel and Egypt, which were seen as more efficient and proven avenues for delivering aid to Gaza.”
The pier was announced during Biden’s State of the Union speech in March and permanently disconnected months earlier than planned in July, due to weather issues that the report says were repeatedly raised in the planning process.
The report lends evidence to observations by many pro-Palestine advocates and experts that the pier merely served as a cynical PR ploy by a U.S. administration that is totally uninterested in alleviating the humanitarian disaster created by Israel.
This is evidenced by other findings from the report. Crucially, officials did not fulfill requirements for WFP, which was tasked with distributing the aid delivered via the pier, that the group said it needed to participate — suggesting that aid group participation in the aid pier wasn’t a top priority for officials.
In planning discussions, WFP said that the pier needed to be located in northern Gaza; the group needed safety guarantees, fearing for the safety of their workers; and that agencies in charge would be “transitioning the response to civilian operation after the initial 90 days of planned use.”
These conditions were not met. After consulting with the Israeli military and USAID, the U.S. Department of Defense decided instead to moor the pier in central Gaza, right at the end of Israel’s Netzarim Corridor. This is despite the fact that northern Gaza was experiencing the highest amount of food insecurity in the region and, by May, was in “full-blown famine,” WFP said.
Further, rather than security by a third-party group as WFP requested, officials decided that Israeli forces would provide “security” — despite the fact that Israel has an extremely hostile relationship with humanitarian aid workers and has killed hundreds of them amid its genocide.
These decisions would prove to be major contributors to the pier’s failure to provide aid. Ultimately, the pier was attached for roughly 20 of the 90 days expected, and delivered less than a third of the aid that the U.S. had promised — pallets of food that had sat on the beach in the sun for weeks.
Shortly after the pier was first erected, WFP announced it was pausing use of the pier because of safety concerns, citing Israeli shelling of WFP’s warehouses. This announcement came a day after Israel’s raid of Nuseirat refugee camp that killed 274 people, which Israeli forces staged using an area near the pier, according to photos and video.
This pause, according to the report, also came after crowds of hungry Palestinians had “improperly removed” aid from a dozen WFP trucks attempting to transport aid from the pier to their warehouse — after which Israel temporarily barred WFP from making deliveries and dragged their feet on approving more secure routes for WFP trucks to take.
Meanwhile, a USAID staffer said the relative safety of the aid routes was extremely volatile as “planned distribution routes could become evacuation zones within a matter of hours.”
Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One
Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.
Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.
Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.
As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.
And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.
In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.
We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.
We urgently need your help to prepare. As you know, our December fundraiser is our most important of the year and will determine the scale of work we’ll be able to do in 2025. We’ve set two goals: to raise $150,000 in one-time donations and to add 1,500 new monthly donors by midnight on December 31.
Today, we’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.
If you have the means to make a substantial gift, please dig deep during this critical time!
With gratitude and resolve,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy