expo: eas local build failing

Question

whenever I'm running this command eas build -p ios --profile development --local I'm getting an error :

Cocoapods is not available, make sure it's installed and in your PATH
pod --version exited with non-zero code: 1
npx exited with non-zero code: 1
    Error: build command failed.

eas.json:

{
  "cli": {
    "version": ">= 3.13.3"
  },
  "build": {
    "development": {
      "developmentClient": true,
      "distribution": "internal",
      "ios": {
        "simulator": true
      }
    },
    "preview": {
      "distribution": "internal"
    },
    "production": {}
  },
  "submit": {
    "production": {}
  }
}

I made sure that cocoapods is installed correctly and available in PATH
pod --version : 1.12.1

echo $PATH : /usr/local/bin

The strange thing is that I made a local build a few days ago and it was successful without any issues.