The U.S. military Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore system, or JLOTS, in use since May to deliver humanitarian aid into Gaza, has closed out its mission, U.S. Central Command announced yesterday.
But Centcom remains committed to delivering several million pounds of aid originally destined for delivery using that system, said Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh during a news briefing.
"In the coming days, Centcom will work with USAID to deliver the remaining aid commodities, currently afloat, to the port of Ashdod, in Israel, for onward distribution to Gaza, and will provide coordination and liaison support for humanitarian aid delivery as a request of USAID when appropriate," Singh said.
Due to sea states, the JLOTS pier has not been in operation in Gaza since late June. That pause in operations, coupled with the announced shuttering of the mission, will require about five million pounds of humanitarian aid once designated for delivery over the JLOTS pier to be delivered through the Israeli port of Ashdod.
That aid, Singh said, is either in Cyprus, or "afloat," in that it is currently either on commercial shipping vessels or U.S. military vessels underway on the Mediterranean Sea.
In early May, the Defense Department completed deployment of the JLOTS in the Mediterranean Sea. This included a floating pier several miles off the coast of Gaza as well an additional pier, referred to as the Trident Pier, anchored on the Gaza shore.
The mission was then carried out in multiple steps. Commercial cargo ships loaded with humanitarian aid in Cyprus sailed to the floating pier. There, at sea, cargo was unloaded from the commercial ships and onto trucks that were aboard Army-owned logistic vessels.
After leaving the floating pier, the Army vessels traveled to the Trident Pier. There, the trucks exited the Army vessels and moved aid over the pier to the shore, where the humanitarian aid supplies could then be staged for delivery inside Gaza.
Singh said the mission was successful.
"With collaboration from 12 nations, international partners, USAID, and the United Nations, the temporary pier successfully delivered nearly 20 million pounds of aid, which is the highest volume of humanitarian assistance the U.S. military has ever delivered into the Middle East," Singh said. "The temporary pier achieved its goal of providing an additive means of delivering high volumes of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza."
Going forward, Singh said, the U.S. military will play an advisory role, at least for the short term, in the continued delivery of aid, which is expected to go through Ashdod and then over ground routes into Gaza.
"In the immediate future, we're going to maintain some coordination elements that have been in place, such as the coordination cell ... in Cyprus and in Israel. We want to make sure that aid is going to continue to flow into Gaza," she said. "But this new route, that aid flows through Ashdod, will ultimately be managed by USAID and other humanitarian organizations ... I'd include the World Food Program in that as well."