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trident pier
IG Report Confirms Critics of Misguided US Aid Pier in Gaza Were Exactly Right
Like outside humanitarian workers and other critics, USAID staffers warned the pier would detract from efforts to step up aid deliveries via border crossings.
Aug 28, 2024
Palestinian civilians, humanitarian aid workers on the ground in Gaza, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, and other rights advocates all said the same thing earlier this year as U.S. President Joe Biden announced plans to construct a $230 million temporary pier to deliver relief to Gaza residents being starved by Israel's aid blockade: The pier was no substitute for reopening border crossings and would undercut efforts to pressure Israel to do so.
Their warnings went unheeded, but a report released by the Office of the Inspector General at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on Tuesday showed that outside critics were echoing concerns that were also being brought up within the agency.
"Multiple USAID staff expressed concerns that the focus on using JLOTS [the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore system] 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," wrote Inspector General Paul K. Martin in the report.
The critics both inside and outside of USAID were concerned that the temporary Trident Pier, which included an offshore barge and a causeway leading to the Gaza shore, would fail to provide the level of aid needed to save Palestinians from starvation and the diseases that they were becoming more vulnerable to due to months of acute food insecurity.
At the time that Biden announced the pier's planned construction in his State of the Union address in March, the United Nations had just reported that at least 20 children had died from starvation, including a 14-day-old baby. Jamie McGoldrick, U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, issued an urgent call for at least 300 aid trucks to cross through the Karem Abu Salem and Rafah bording crossings, and said, "Right now, we're lucky if we are getting about 150."
With USAID allowing Israel to inspect all aid deliveries that arrived at the Trident Pier, which was eventually built in May, critics at the time warned that the temporary port would do nothing to ensure relief got to starving Palestinians faster.
Itay Epshtain, a special adviser to the Norwegian Refugee Council based in Israel, said the inspector general's report on Tuesday represented "one more 'I told you so'" for those who had denounced the pier as a "PR move" last spring.
When the Trident Pier was announced, Epshtain said that "creativity is no substitute to upholding international law" by pressuring Israel to reopen all border crossings and to stop denying entry to humanitarian aid trucks.
The failure of the project became evident well before Martin released his report on Tuesday, with the pier shutting down on July 17 after operating for just 20 days.
Biden had set a goal of feeding 1.5 million people in Gaza for 90 days, but the operation brought in enough aid deliveries to feed just 450,000 people.
Martin noted in the report's conclusion that "about 96% of the population in Gaza, or 2.15 million people, continues to face severe
food insecurity and is at a high risk of famine."
The report also details the challenges faced by USAID, the Department of Defense, the World Food Program (WFP), and other partners after the pier was built.
The pier "was frequently rendered inoperable due to structural challenges caused by high winds and rough seas," and the WFP raised concerns at the outset that "lack of community buy-in among Palestinians for the maritime corridor could result in significant safety and security risks and compromise its operations."
The U.N. agency had warned USAID that it required "the clear and visible distinction between humanitarian and military actors" in order to participate in the project, but WFP officials were forced to pause their participation in June after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted a raid on the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing hundreds of Palestinians.
"Social media posts showed video of the IDF with the JLOTS pier in the background, resulting in the inference that Israel had used the pier inconnection with the military operation. In a statement on June 8, U.S. Central Command officially denied that the IDF used the pier in a military operation. The next day, WFP publicly announced a pause in operations at the temporary pier to conduct a security review."
Such security issues, "coupled with high winds and rough seas in the Mediterranean Sea near the Gaza coast, impaired the agency's ability to deliver the intended amounts of aid through the maritime corridor," reads the inspector general's report. "As USAID continues to respond to humanitarian needs in Gaza, it should examine its experience with JLOTS."
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Failed US Military Pier Offered 'Humanitarian Gloss' as Israel Starved Gaza
"The entire operation was a failed exercise in public relations by the Biden administration," said one observer.
Jul 12, 2024
After failing to re-anchor its "humanitarian pier" in Gaza, the Pentagon said Thursday that the much-ballyhooed project—which critics dismissed as a "public relations ploy" that did next to nothing to stop the deadly starvation spreading in the besieged Palestinian enclave—would shut down indefinitely.
Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder said U.S. troops had failed to reconnect the floating Trident Pier to Gaza's shore due to "technical and weather-related issues," according toThe Washington Post.
The $320 million project—which consists of a floating offshore barge and 1,800-foot causeway to the shore—was touted as eventually being able to accommodate up to 150 aid trucks per day. Instead, it facilitated the shipment of the equivalent of about a single day's worth of prewar food deliveries while operating for a total of less than three weeks.
"As a pier, it's shutting down. As a metaphor, it will live forever," said Tom Philpott, a senior researcher at Johns Hopkins University's Center for a Livable Future.
Stephen Semler, co-founder of the Security Policy Reform Institute, welcomed the project's demise.
"The U.S. pier was never supposed to work. It was designed to give a humanitarian gloss to [U.S. President Joe] Biden's pro-genocide policy in Gaza," he said on social media. "Good riddance to this failed PR stunt."
However, during a Thursday press conference, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan defended the pier, arguing that it "has made a difference in trying to deal with the heartbreaking humanitarian situation in Gaza."
"I see any result that produces more food, more humanitarian goods getting to the people of Gaza, as a success," he asserted. "It is additive. It is something additional that otherwise would not have gotten there when it got there. And that is a good thing."
Even if the pier had achieved its expected capacity, it would still have been far fewer than the prewar daily mean of more than 500 truckloads that U.S. and United Nations officials said are required to meet the needs of a population facing critical shortages of food, water, medicine, and other lifesaving supplies.
The pier was in operation for only about 20 days in May before it broke apart during stormy conditions. The structure was subsequently repaired, but then was dismantled just a week after reopening in June due to more rough seas.
It is also likely that the pier was used for military purposes during the June raid by Israel Defense Forces troops, who killed or wounded hundreds of Palestinians—including many women and children—during the rescue of four Israelis kidnapped by Hamas militants on October 7.
"It seems clear that the entire operation was a failed exercise in public relations by the Biden administration, which has sat on its hands while the extremist Netanyahu cabinet, full of the Israeli equivalent of neo-Nazis, has half-starved or in some instances whole-starved the Palestinians of Gaza," Middle East expert Juan Cole wrote Friday, referring to the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At least dozens of Palestinians, mostly children, have died in Gaza due to a lack of food, water, and medical treatment. Palestinian and international agencies say that Israel's 280-day war on Gaza has left at least 137,500 people dead, maimed, or missing; around 90% of the embattled strip's population forcibly displaced; and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians starving.
"A U.S. administration has to have an answer when reporters ask it why it is allowing Palestinian children to become emaciated, and the pier was an attempted answer," Cole added. "The other possibility was for the Biden administration to man up and just tell Netanyahu and his rogues' gallery cabinet that they cannot starve innocent civilians as part of their campaign against Hamas, and that if they do not cut it out there will be hell to pay. But Biden is in the tank for the Israeli government."
U.N. experts and others have called Israel's forced starvation of Palestinians in Gaza "a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine."
The International Court of Justice—which is weighing whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza—has ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts in the embattled enclave, to "immediately halt" its offensive in Rafah, and to stop blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza in the face of worsening "famine and starvation." Israel is accused of flouting all three ICJ orders.
Meanwhile, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan accused top Israeli officials of using "starvation as a weapon of war" and "extermination" in his May application for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Khan is also seeking to arrest three Hamas leaders for alleged crimes including extermination and rape.
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As US Aid Shipments Begin, Gaza Pier Denounced as 'PR Move'
"It's completely absurd," said one humanitarian worker. "The solution to the problem here is obvious."
May 17, 2024
As humanitarian shipments began trickling into Gaza via a U.S.-built temporary floating pier, Palestinians and aid workers on Friday renewed criticism of what they called an expensive and largely ineffectual publicity stunt that is no substitute for a cease-fire and opening of more land crossings into the besieged coastal enclave.
U.S. Army Central Command said that "trucks carrying humanitarian assistance began moving ashore" at around 9:00 am local time Friday as part of "an ongoing, multinational effort to deliver additional aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza via a maritime corridor."
The $320 million Trident Pier—which consists of a floating offshore barge and 1,800-foot causeway to the shore—is expected to eventually accommodate up to 150 trucks per day. According to United Nations agencies, an average of 200 trucks entered Gaza each day last month, far fewer than the prewar daily mean of more than 500 truckloads that U.S. and U.N. officials say are required to meet the needs of a population facing critical shortages of food, water, medicine, and other lifesaving supplies.
"We don't want ships. We want the border crossing to open for people to come and go. We want safety."
However, as famine grips northern Gaza—with malnutrition and dehydration killing dozens of people, mostly children—and at least hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians starve, Israel has been accused of blocking aid from those who desperately need it and using starvation as a weapon of war.
"We don't want ships. We want the border crossing to open for people to come and go. We want safety. We want official borders," Hassan Abu Al-Kass, a forcibly displaced Palestinian man, toldThe New York Times on Thursday.
Al-Kass compared the pier to the humanitarian aid airdropped by U.S. and other troops over Gaza, whose officials
say that more than 20 people have been killed by the parachuting parcels, either by crushing or drowning while trying to reach offshore drops.
"Those planes, as well, that they bring here with the parachutes, and they throw food at us like dogs, like beggars, that does not work," he said. "It falls on houses. It falls on people. It brings us problems."
One unnamed humanitarian aid worker
told U.S. investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill: "It's completely absurd. The solution to the problem here is obvious and we need to end the occupation... Once the siege is lifted, humanitarian aid can roll in. A pier is a PR move."
Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, said Thursday that "to stave off the horrors of famine, we must use the fastest and most obvious route to reach the people of Gaza—and for that, we need access by land now."
Washington Post columnist Ishaan Tharoor noted on social media Thursday that "no major humanitarian organization has asked for this pier, and most see it as a costly distraction that will do little to make a dent in meeting Gaza's overwhelming humanitarian needs."
"For that," he added, "you need a cease-fire and open border crossings and less military obstruction."
According to a report published last month, officials at the United States Agency for International Development concluded in a confidential memo to Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel is violating a White House directive by blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. Critics pointed to the leaked memo as more evidence that the Biden administration is breaking the law by supporting Israel's assault on Gaza—which Palestinian and international officials say has killed, wounded, or left missing more than 125,000 people—with arms and diplomatic cover.
Parties to the South African-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, as well as human rights groups, accuse Israel of flouting the ICJ's January 26 preliminary ruling ordering the Israeli government to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza and ensure immediate delivery of humanitarian aid. Israel rejects charges of genocide and blocking aid.
Hundreds of U.N. and other aid workers—overwhelmingly Palestinians—have also been killed or wounded by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7. Israeli troops have been accused of deliberately attacking both humanitarian workers and Palestinians trying to receive aid, including in the February 29 "Flour Massacre," in which nearly 900 starving Gazans were killed or wounded while waiting for food distribution south of Gaza City.
Critics have slammed U.S. President Joe Biden for offering token aid to Gazans with one hand while lavishing Israel with billions of dollars of weaponry used to kill Palestinians with the other.
Earlier this month, Biden said he would stop sending bombs, artillery shells, and other arms to Israel in the event of a major invasion of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians forcibly displaced from other parts of the embattled Gaza Strip are sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents.
However, as Israeli air and ground attacks pound the southern city, killing civilians including 22 members of one family in a single strike, Biden—who previously implored Israel to stop its "indiscriminate bombing" of Palestinian noncombatants—informed Congress this week that his administration will soon send another $1 billion in arms and ammunition, including tank and mortar rounds, to the Israel Defense Forces.
This, despite the Biden administration last week
acknowledging "reasonable" evidence that Israel is using U.S.-supplied weapons in the commission of war crimes in Gaza, with the caveat that "we are not able to reach definitive conclusions" on the matter.
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