STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We have some fresh perspectives on a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. NPR has obtained an internal U.S. government memo that issues a warning about civilians there. Here's our colleague Kat Lonsdorf.
KAT LONSDORF, BYLINE: My colleagues and I were texted a series of pictures of a computer screen. And if you zoomed in on that screen, you could see a diplomatic cable from the U.S. embassy here to the State Department. And that cable contained an assessment from USAID about the adverse effects of Israel's increased evacuation orders for civilians in Gaza to flee areas of combat. The U.S. is basically saying that the current pace of these evacuations has made Palestinians less safe and warns that they could, quote, "debilitate remaining humanitarian operations." The memo went on to acknowledge that Israel will likely not stop these evacuations. Instead, the U.S. government has been advocating for several ways the military could change how they carry them out, to make them safer for both Palestinians and aid workers.
INSKEEP: That's NPR's Kat Lonsdorf. We also have today some follow-up on a bid to help civilians in Gaza. In its war against Hamas, Israel blocked food and supplies from passing through some regular border crossings, so in March, President Biden proposed a workaround - the U.S. military would build a floating pier on the Gaza coast.
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PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: A temporary pier will enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day.
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INSKEEP: Now we know the increase was less massive than officials had hoped. The U.S. did deploy this pier, known by the acronym JLOTS. Paul Martin, inspector general for the U.S. Agency for International Development, has now examined the results.
PAUL MARTIN: So the JLOTS clearly fell short of its goal of supplying the amount of humanitarian aid that was intended. Instead of providing aid to 1.5 million people over a three-month period, in actuality, it provided aid for about 450,000 Palestinians during the 20 days of intermittent operation.
INSKEEP: So it provided one-third of the supplies for a small fraction of the time, roughly speaking.
MARTIN: That's correct.
INSKEEP: When the pier was working, ships would dock, unload food, and U.N. trucks would carry the food into Gaza. At least, that was the plan.
MARTIN: Well, the U.N. - yeah, we dealt primarily with the World Food Program, as well as other NGOs. There were lack of secure distribution routes once the aid was brought ashore. For example, 12 of 26 aid trucks were looted in the first two days of the JLOTS operation.
INSKEEP: OK, so that's the U.N.'s problem. But the front end of this is the United States, doing the thing the United States does better than anybody else in the world, which is logistics. What went wrong with the pier?
MARTIN: Well, part of it was the security requirements and where the pier needed to be placed, according to the DOD. But I think more of a factor was these external factors - including bad weather and high seas in the Mediterranean - limited the number of days the pier could be operational. Where it was supposed to operate for over 90 days during a three-month period, it operated only intermittently for about 20 days.
INSKEEP: What were things that you heard from people who were in charge of this about what they would have done differently, if anything?
MARTIN: There was a focus and a concern that leaning into the JLOTS maritime corridor might take the pressure off opening some of the land borders, which many in the international aid community thought were more efficient routes to get maximum amount of aid into the country. Again, from USAID's perspective, while this may not have been their first choice, they were looking to this as additive. This was going to supplement their efforts to get land-based aid into the country.
INSKEEP: Paul Martin, inspector general for the U.S. Agency for International Development. When the pier was operating, aid workers argued here on NPR that it would have been simpler just to send the food by land through Israel. That is still happening only sporadically, as Israel and Hamas continue negotiating toward a cease-fire. And the pier, which cost $230 million to deploy, has been put back in storage. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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