Latest / The Fourcast / ‘A child killed every hour shouldn’t be normal’ - UNICEF on Gaza

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‘A child killed every hour shouldn’t be normal’ - UNICEF on Gaza · The Fourcast

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People are being starved and then being shot when they seek a
0:03
solution to that. And I met young people who were
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in tears just saying why I did exactly what I was told.
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I was in a caged area and then drones came over and drones
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fired. Why?
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If there is a famine, that's too late.
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Famine means mass deaths. Starvation, which is, you know,
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a, a, a layer before is happening.
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And starvation means that a child's body, you know, it's
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immune system is collapsing. There's already cognitive
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decline, which becomes irreversible in children, so
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children's bodies aren't waiting for some technical definition
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to. Occur Are Member States
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complicit in what's going on? There's certainly not the action
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required to stop this. Hello and welcome to the
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forecast. What comes first, a peace deal
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or a Peace Prize? The war rages on in Gaza.
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Another 40 Palestinians were killed overnight in Israeli
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airstrikes. But Israel's Prime Minister
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Benjamin Netanyahu has been unable to thrash out a ceasefire
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deal despite 2 days of talks in Washington.
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So he did nominate Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
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Meanwhile, in Gaza, families continue to struggle for food
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and water amid the constant bombardments and with an aid
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system that is failing to deliver.
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Joining me to discuss the situation is James Elder, global
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spokesperson for UNICEF, the United Nations agency providing
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humanitarian aid to children worldwide.
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He's just back from Gaza, his fifth visit to the territory
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since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October 2023.
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James Elder, just start by telling us what the situation is
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on the ground when you last saw it.
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I was stunned to see how much worse it had got.
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I didn't think, you know, you, I would see a population put under
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that much more stress. Somehow we've gone from that
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level of a population, you know, a grave risk of starvation.
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Children are starving to water deprivation, force, water
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deprivation. This is purely political.
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This is not logistical. So to see this, Kathy, like a, a
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collision on a child's body now of a deprivation of food that
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everyone's heard about for a long time, but now a level of
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water which is way below any emergency standard, what that
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does to a child, but what that does to a community, the stress
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people see when suddenly they know the water truck is no
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longer coming. So see that on top of, yeah, you
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know, a child is being killed in Gaza every single hour since the
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horror of October, horrors of October 7.
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So I go in hospitals and I see that every single day.
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So it was more of the same, which to any human is abhorrent
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and jarring, but somehow it's much, much worse.
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And that's largely around, as you say, a failed aid
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distribution and and water deprivation.
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I'll come back to what that looks like and the evidence you
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have for that. But you know, you've been there
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five Times Now. Have you seen each time you go
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back it gets exponentially worse?
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Yeah. And even this time in a two week
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period that I was there, it got exponentially worse.
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And if I think of 1, you know, they say in Gaza, there's so
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many parts of you that feel guilty in Gaza, Kathy.
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And one of them is people will say that a day in Gaza is like
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dog years, like one day is like 7.
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And that's what it feels like. But you know, and I feel that
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over 2 week period, but there's immense guilt even having that
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sense because there's, you know, there's an 8 year old girl in
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Gaza who's been there for 640 days.
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There's guilt in Gaza when you eat a proper meal.
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There's guilt in Gaza at 1:00 in the morning where I put a pillow
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over my head because I just desperately need a little bit of
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sleep. So, but in that two week period,
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which feels like a long, long time, you know, on about the
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second day, I met an elderly Palestinian man who was saying,
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look James, we've learnt to, to live without so much.
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We've learnt to live without our homes that have been destroyed.
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We've learnt to live without loved ones.
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Many of us have seen loved ones killed, but we can't live
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without food. I saw the same man 11 days later
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and he said almost the same thing, which was we've learnt to
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live without so much homes destroyed, loved ones killed.
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And we've even learnt we can live without food, you know,
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maybe even for a week, maybe 2. But we cannot live without
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water. So even the short period I was
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there, I was seeing that stress on communities.
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I met a little girl, Catherine. We said, how are you?
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And she did the, you know, the Arabic expression for fun.
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I'm doing that. And my translator said, no, no,
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really, how are you? And she said, what do you want
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me to say? My mother was killed.
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I used to be beautiful and now I spend every day chasing water
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trucks. So yeah, the situation of people
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is much, much worse and would horrify anyone.
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And you know, famine has been haunting Gaza for months now.
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Would you say what you're seeing suggests it's happening?
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No, but I don't think it matters to Palestinians.
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I think it's really useful that we have that world's best
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nutritional body that makes those warnings and it's it's
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useful in a systematic sense because deprivations are
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systematic. That's not my opinion.
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We've seen that and what we see is that a continual tightening
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and restrictions on the amount of humanitarian aid Israel let's
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in. And then you have these very,
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very clear evidence driven warnings around the warning of
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famine. And then international pressure
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from member state states mounts and the restrictions are
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loosened and aid is allowed to flow and then international
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tension wanes and the, you know, the noose is tightened again.
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We see that time and again. Now the reality is that if there
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is a famine, that's too late. Famine means mass deaths,
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starvation, which is, you know, a, a, a layer before is
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happening. And starvation means that a
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child's body, you know, it's immune system is collapsing.
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There's already cognitive decline, which becomes
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irreversible in children. So children's bodies aren't
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waiting for some technical definition to occur.
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And that's what I think is so harrowing there to see this
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systematic deprivation. And now, of course, you know,
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nutrition, we talk famine, but what do we talk about with
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water? There's no word that gets the
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world's attention. But there needs to be because
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that's what's occurring right now for for mums and dads and
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families in Gaza. So in your personal view, is
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Israel committing genocide? I look, that's, I don't have the
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skill set to speak to that. I just don't it's a legal
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definition. Francesca Albanese is very clear
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on the responsibility of member states to if there are warning
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sites to do all the things to prevent, you know, anything, any
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signs of that. So member states very, very
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clearly need to be patently aware of all the statements made
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and all the restrictions placed on a population.
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But you know, we know that a court will make that decision
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for the people in Gaza right now.
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What's very clear for them is that children are being killed
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every single day. There is a level of
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indiscriminate fire. You don't have a reported 17,000
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girls and boys killed. As we say, one child killed
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every hour. That's it's fearful that that is
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somehow normalised. It's fearful that 85% of homes
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have been destroyed or damaged and that also is somehow
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normalised. Those things should be
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triggering great action from Member States.
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Well, I mean, the Israeli government denies that
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conditions in Gaza are causing malnutrition.
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It says it's working with international organisations to
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get aid through and crossing the border from Israel into Gaza.
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What? What do you make of that?
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I think it's the same statement we made from the start, Kathy.
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Evidence is everything, so on one hand this shouldn't be, he
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said. She's said it won't, you know,
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firstly, we know we need international journalists on the
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ground. Secondly, I don't know from my
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own time, 2 decades as humanitarian at what point, you
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know, UNICEF or the voice of UN workers didn't be isn't utterly
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impartial. And we know numerically that,
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you know, around 50 trucks of aid are allowed in.
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That's 10% of what's needed. That's 1% if you allow for the
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blockade beforehand. So you know, and Israel won't
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deny that. So it's an absolutely inadequate
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amount of aid for population already at then on their knees.
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And then, you know, there are there are attempts to sideline a
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humanitarian system that has worked very well.
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And we need to look to that. We we could look to humanitarian
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system that's worked from Somalia to Afghanistan to Sudan
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right now or we could look to a humanitarian system two months
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ago in a ceasefire. Humanitarian aid you have to be
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driven by two things. One is reaching those it most in
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need and the other is an evidence base that your
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interventions are improving the situation.
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So during the ceasefire, we saw that we saw 400 distribution
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points, an organization like UNICEF going door to door on
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malnutrition. We saw malnutrition start to
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decrease. We saw disease start to
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decrease. We saw access to water increase.
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The sidelining of that humanitarian system and being
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replaced by 1/2 a dozen for distribution points that are
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militarised in the South has none of that evidence base
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whatsoever. It has the exact opposite, of
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course. So, so we have to look to
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evidence that the situation of people on the ground is
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improving and it's gotten much, much worse again in the last
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month or two. Well, I mean, the Gaza
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Humanitarian Foundation, GHF began as an effort to bypass
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Hamas control of aid. I mean, given the amount of
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theft that went on, you know, at the hands of Hamas, that sounds
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like a noble idea, doesn't it? Well, no, it's, it's three parts
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to this, if I can. 1 is a diversion.
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So there's a diversion and there's aid looting.
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Aid diversion is basically that, that all the aid is being taken
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by Hamas. The International Crisis Group,
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a very leading think tank, has said it's less than 1%.
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So it's less than Somalia, less than northern Nigeria.
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It's not a relevant amount. So that's just objectively
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false, demonstrably false. And as UNICEF has said, we've
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asked for evidence time and again on this aid diversion.
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So that's false. Looting, of course, is the
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economics of scarcity. You know, looting does occur
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when, you know, if you have, we're in London right now.
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If you have half of London deprived of all humanity, of all
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food, water, medicine for, for two to three months and then you
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allow a truck to go down Victoria St. people will take
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what they can from that truck. During the ceasefire, there was
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no aid looting because there was no, there was no, there was no
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black market. So that's looting.
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That's the version. So there's no evidence.
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And then there's no logic, of course, because we have to
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remember that food aid is not just food.
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Aid is incubators, aid is oxygen, aid is medicine, aid is
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is hygiene packs for women and girls.
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So there's no logic. There's no evidence.
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Then let's move away from food for a moment and let's just look
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at water. Water goes from the source to
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the recipient. Why on earth are there such
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restrictions that we now have risk of children dying of
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thirst? We certainly have a meningitis,
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if not an outbreak. We have great spikes in
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meningitis that's based on deprivations of water,
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deprivations of food, deprivations of medical care and
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populations being forced into an area.
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So this is not around allegations of who, you know,
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who's who's got the evidence and who hasn't.
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Well, this is exactly around who's got the evidence, Who
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hasn't? Well, well, I mean, you asked
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that question rhetorically, you know, why are people not getting
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enough water? What's your answer to that
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question? The the answer can only be that
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I mean, this is a there, there is an intent to deny a
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population, you know, the the means it needs right now for
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survival. And I again, it doesn't it's not
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needed for, you know, UN officials to make these
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statements. These statements are are made
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now you know. But I mean, you know, is Israel
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challenges that, they say it's disinformation.
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Is this where the problem of not having international journalists
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on the ground comes in, because you can't verify, claim and
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counterclaim? No, because for example, yeah, a
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lot of water in in in Gaza comes through desalina tion plants and
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they require electricity and Israel turned off the
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electricity after the horrors of October 7th and made it very
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clear that they were doing that. Now UNICEF actually lobbied to
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get those that that turned on again and that's runs your desal
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plants, but that's been turned off since the ceasefire broke.
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Now no one will will claim that that's not the case.
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So when you've got, you know, pipelines that Israel controls
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and and electricity, which is which chart which desal plants
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is the production, the treatment and the then the distribution of
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water. No one and no one's making
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those. It's just the fog of war.
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But but unfortunately for the civilians in Gaza, the mums, the
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dads, the families, it's very, very clear the level of
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deprivation and and done with the unfortunately statements of
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intent not made by me, but made by people, you know, in
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positions of power to change that.
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Well, we've seen hundreds of Palestinians killed as they
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queue for aid being delivered by this private American backed
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Gaza humanitarian foundation. The GHF and the Israel Defence
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Forces have rejected allegations of deliberately firing on
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civilians. Do you have any explanation as
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to why starving people are being shot?
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No, I found it so harrowing, Kathy.
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I mean, I met, I met young people who were in tears, whose
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family had begged them not to go, but they just, they're being
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starved, OK? People are, are starved and
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they, they, they suddenly being starved and then, as you say,
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being, being shot when they seek a solution to that.
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And I met young people who are in tears.
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Just saying why I went. I hid for five hours.
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I did exactly what I was told. I was in a caged area.
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And then drones came over and drones fired.
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Why? Why, why would they do that?
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I met a little boy who I mean this little guy, he's 13 year
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old boy Abed Al Rahman. He was given money by his
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parents. Their their only money to go and
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buy bread. Again, this is a family that on
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technical definitions, the entire family is malnourished.
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This little boy sees that's his situation of his mum being given
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money, Kathy, he goes out onto the street and he saw large
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numbers of people moving to one of these sites.
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They are military sites. Remembering this is one of the
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reasons the United Nations cannot support them because next
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thing we are supporting people to go and to be shot on route to
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try and recover aid. This little boy went there.
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I met him in hospital. He will always stick with me.
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He went, there was firing, he ran, he didn't.
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He left without a box, he left without any food aid at all.
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There was a tank shell fired. When I met this little guy, he
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had shrapnel in his stomach. He had shrapnel in his pancreas.
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His his mum wanted a video for social media because they had a
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medical evacuation form Kathy. So he sat up.
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I remember this little guy with all his energy.
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He sat up, he held onto my arm in immense pain.
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This was 2:00 in the afternoon. He'd had five mils of
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painkillers earlier that morning because there's a grave lack of
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painkillers for children. Every now he'd wince with his
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horror, horrible pain. But he, his brave kid, just
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wanted to sit up. He told his story and his
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father. It's quite a, you know,
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patriarchal society. His father was in tears because
13:55
this little boy saying, I just wanted to get food for my
13:57
family. That was the scenario of just a
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boy simply trying to feed his family, feed his mom and his
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sisters. And on the final day that I left
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Gaza, again in this two week period, he died of his injuries.
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I mean, how do you respond to something like that terrible,
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tragic story? Cathy, for me, I mean, I was in
14:19
a bus leaving Gaza. So honestly, you have a moment,
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you know, I meant I picture his mum constantly holding this
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medical evacuation form that was meant to get him out of Gaza, a
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system that's just not working based on based on the reluctance
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of member states to accept people.
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I pictured his entire family. I just had this moment, Kathy,
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of thinking for 30 seconds. Okay, right.
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So we've done everything we can again, told people's stories,
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seeing what Unisys program is like and had, you know, almost
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30 seconds of feeling like all right, well, we left nothing,
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you know, left nothing there and then saw that message and that
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somehow Gaza that people just you know, you don't, you don't
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have a moment of respite until another piece of, of brutal
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news. So all I and the picture I have
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right now is, is again of his utterly distraught mother whilst
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he was alive. So when you hear Benjamin
15:09
Netanyahu describing claims that troops have fired deliberately
15:14
on civilians as malicious falsehoods designed to defame
15:18
the Israeli military, and, you know, again, talk of a
15:21
disinformation campaign propagated by Hamas, how do you
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respond to that from what you yourself have witnessed?
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It's very hard because I've had horrible things said to me as
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well. And, and I know very clearly in
15:35
my heart why I've done this work and why, you know, whether I,
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whether I want to raise the voice of a mom in Sudan or a
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little girl in Haiti, a child, a child is a child.
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And, and at what point did it suddenly become controversial to
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speak about 17,000 girls and boys reportedly killed or
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controversial for us to advocate that incubators should be
15:55
allowed to into Gaza because children right now are dying
15:59
unnecessarily because they because medical staff are hand
16:02
pumping oxygen with three children in an incubator?
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Or at what point am I having to advocate that water's allowed
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in? So something's gone gone
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horribly wrong here. But it's awful to argue about
16:14
figures and for figures to become contested.
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But they have become contested, haven't they?
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And, you know, you're sort of in the midst of that, aren't you?
16:21
Yeah, I don't, yes, very much so.
16:23
But I feel now, I mean, because UNICEF we, you know, we, we, we
16:26
verify things so intensely. So for UNICEF to speak publicly
16:32
on things, you know, we don't when we said, for example, war
16:34
on children, we don't seek a headline.
16:36
We seek to absolutely use data and evidence always.
16:40
So the great concern now is when we say 17,000 children
16:44
reportedly killed, we say that because in past conflicts when
16:47
thousands of children have been killed in Gaza, when we've done
16:50
what's called our triangular verification, which takes six
16:52
months, it's been within a couple of percentage points of
16:55
the Hamas Ministry of Health. So unfortunately, the fear now
16:59
from people is that that is an undercount.
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Now. We don't know.
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But either way, as I've often thought, Kathy, let's hope,
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let's hope it's wrong. Let's hope it's only 5000
17:08
children have been killed or killed, 5000 children killed.
17:12
It's still 5000 and it's still more yesterday and it's more
17:15
today. Unfortunately, it does sound
17:17
much more like it's more than 15,000 than 5000.
17:20
And whether it is 5000 or 15,000, those are individual
17:23
children who have lost their lives.
17:25
Yeah, and more and more are again, I sat with every every
17:28
hospital bedroom you're in has got three or four children with
17:31
the wounds of war, and they're all utterly grotesque.
17:33
And I can just picture one particular room, Kathy, and
17:36
there's a little girl in there, cellar and she was 11.
17:39
The bombast had hit her. She had her left leg amputated.
17:42
But because again, despite the doctors best efforts, they're
17:45
working 24 hour shifts, they're living in tents.
17:47
Despite their best efforts, because of a lack of drugs, they
17:50
had to amputate this little girl.
17:52
So she's just being dissembled that.
17:53
So she's sitting there and then Jana, Jana is here.
17:57
Jana was brushing her teeth when a missile struck in her school
18:00
shelter, brushing her teeth. This little girl was paralysed
18:03
from the waist down. She's 11, Cathy, and she lay
18:06
there paralysed. She was explaining this, lay
18:08
there paralysed. But because she's paralysed,
18:09
obviously she couldn't move, move.
18:11
She watched, she was conscious, she watched her friend die in
18:14
front of her. This is a single hospital bed
18:16
with the other boy in that room who was shot in the head by a
18:19
quadcopter as he was evacuating because he was told to evacuate
18:22
at 2:00 in the morning. That's one hospital bed.
18:25
There's scores of them. And that's just one day.
18:27
I'm bearing witness to a single day.
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That's what should be so harrowing, or or should be so
18:32
alarming. And and because of the sense of
18:35
international media, you you see it as a core part of your job to
18:39
bear witness, as you put it. Yeah, I think, I mean, my job
18:43
should be always to go and bear witness and to explain what
18:45
UNICEF is doing. And the nice thing with UNICEF's
18:47
mandate is we do cash grants, we do education, we do trauma, we
18:51
do things that aren't supply driven and then we push hard to
18:54
get in, you know, the supplies for water and nutrition.
18:56
That's the breadth of of UNICEF's work.
18:58
But I am talking about that less than 5% of the time because it's
19:03
the grave relations occurring to children should have should have
19:07
forced member states to act so much more stridently so much
19:11
earlier on this. So it seems to me so much
19:13
clearer. Whilst international press can't
19:16
be allowed, are not allowed in a ban from bearing witness to the
19:19
atrocities banned. Adding to the very brave
19:21
Palestinian voices then it seems only right for me to take those
19:25
stories of those people who as well who they're very generous
19:28
and they're very gracious. You sit with a mum whose
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daughter has been paralysed and she's yes, yes, talk to my
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daughter. Let me tell you her story.
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I'm not sure I'd be that that that that gracious if a if a if
19:39
a aid worker was doing that whilst I had a medical
19:41
evacuation form that was not doing what it was supposed to
19:44
do. Are Member States complicit in
19:46
what's going on? There's certainly not the action
19:49
required to stop this and I think it's very, very clear as
19:53
well we are, we are only talking about the most basic.
19:55
We're talking about letting humanitarian aid flow.
19:58
We're talking about letting water flow.
19:59
Yes, there is a complication that would seem to to a
20:02
ceasefire. OK, whilst the politics plays
20:04
out in a ceasefire, because maybe that's only in the hands
20:07
of of a few, surely there is much more leverage when it comes
20:11
to medical evaluation of children, ensuring that children
20:14
don't die of thirst and ensuring proper humanitarian.
20:18
Aid flows as it does in Sudan, as it does in the DRC, as it
20:22
does, you know, in Ethiopia, on on those fronts, much more needs
20:26
to be done. But you and I had this
20:28
conversation 18 months ago. Let's talk about the peace plan
20:31
then, because Donald Trump has said that the talks on a peace
20:34
deal in Gaza have been going along very well.
20:37
Do you share his optimism? Do you think there is the basis
20:40
potentially for a a permanent peace or just potential just a
20:45
temporary ceasefire might help? I have to Kathy, go with
20:49
everyday people on the ground who are so desperate, who
20:52
literally would say to me, we hope, but hope is not a
20:54
strategy. Who saw their hope blown up a
20:57
dozen times in 2024. Let's not forget through the
21:00
course of 2024, every single promise and and the cusp of
21:05
ceasefire turned to nothing. That meant parents again, you
21:09
know, had to had to lie next to their children at night time in
21:11
a tent, not knowing if they would survive the night or not.
21:14
So they, the Palestinians on the ground absolutely no longer
21:19
foolish in terms of what is what is real and what isn't.
21:21
But as a humanitarian, we know that for aid to flow like it did
21:26
when we had 400 distribution points, when UNICEF went door to
21:29
door, that happened during a ceasefire.
21:31
Hostages go home in ceasefire. More than 150 hostages during
21:35
ceasefire negotiations, that's when that abhorrence ends.
21:38
Less than less than 10A handful under military means.
21:41
So irrespective of my own hopes, it is the only sane thing for
21:47
children, families, hostages, everyone.
21:49
As my executive director said again 20 months ago, Kathy,
21:53
that, you know, peace in the Middle East is not going to be
21:55
gained by the destruction of Gaza and the killing of so many
21:57
children. That statement, tragically,
22:00
still holds very, very true. Netanyahu has nominated Donald
22:04
Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize. You know, Donald Trump himself
22:07
points out very loudly that he's kept the peace between Conga and
22:10
Rwanda, India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran.
22:14
For now at least, you know, now potentially Israel and Hamas.
22:18
Does he deserve a Nobel Peace Prize?
22:20
Perhaps. I don't know the parameters, but
22:23
I certainly know every single Palestinian, if that, if there
22:26
is a lasting peace, and I would like to think every single
22:29
person in the in the region will celebrate that moment
22:32
accordingly. In the meantime, let's let's
22:35
look at what might happen in Gaza next.
22:38
There's been this proposal from Israel's defence minister for a
22:41
humanitarian camp built on the ruins of Rafa.
22:45
Having been there, spent time there repeatedly, what do you
22:48
make of that plan? Wow.
22:50
I mean, again, you and I actually spoke a long time ago
22:54
at the end of 2023 about the danger of these self-imposed
22:58
safe zones. And what we spoke about was to
23:00
make sure that you can't have a safe zone that doesn't have food
23:03
and water and the basics to survival.
23:05
And that was us making that very clear because none of those
23:07
things were were present. The assumption was that if they
23:10
were created unilaterally, they wouldn't be bombed.
23:12
Then we saw so-called safe zones created without food, without
23:16
sanitation, without all the basics for survival and then
23:19
bombed. So now is if I understand it and
23:21
I haven't followed it closely enough, now we are the the sense
23:24
is to create a cage within a cage.
23:27
So at a time when there is looks to be a worrying increase in
23:30
meningitis cases, you would trap people in an area without the
23:35
medical care. And Rafa had European hospital
23:38
that's not functional without the medical care imposing, you
23:42
know, more restrictions on people's movement, less
23:45
restrictions on access to medical care.
23:47
I I can't see how in any, I'm only looking pragmatically on a
23:51
principled approach. Anyone will tell you that that's
23:53
a breach of many, many international humanitarian law.
23:55
But it seems that international humanitarian law's been
23:58
discarded. I think that's, I think that's
23:59
very worrisome as well. I think that has been for an
24:02
entire generation of people at bedrock in countries.
24:05
And we should be very wary before we do so wilfully discard
24:09
international humanitarian law or allow it to be discarded.
24:12
You just said a cage within a cage.
24:14
I mean, is that what humanity has come to?
24:17
I don't know, I'm fearful of that.
24:19
I'm almost surprised taken by by the by the proposal.
24:22
So again, I would hope that we do not get into this
24:27
normalization, that hospitals being bombed and reporters of
24:30
17,000 children. And yeah, the idea that water
24:33
and incubators are denied, that those things are normal.
24:36
Certainly the idea of forcibly pushing more than half a million
24:39
people into an area that's been devastated, I, I would hope that
24:43
that's ruled out very, very quickly.
24:45
But I fear it's not. And.
24:46
When you hear Donald Trump talking about his plans to
24:49
permanently resettle Palestinians living in Gaza,
24:53
Benjamin Netanyahu said it's a a brilliant vision.
24:55
It's called free choice. If people want to stay, they can
24:58
stay, but if they want to leave, they should be able to leave.
25:01
Described in those terms, what do you make of it?
25:05
Well, I think right now I don't think we've had any conflict
25:08
that I recall in living memory whereby an entire population,
25:12
you have your home bombed and you've forced in a tent and
25:15
you're not safe there and you've lost loved ones and there's no
25:18
access to medical care and you and you can't leave.
25:21
So the first problem is what's why for 21 months has Israel
25:25
denied people the ability to leave a war zone.
25:28
Now if there is peace and then people are allowed to leave,
25:32
then of of course, but people absolutely must have a right to
25:34
return. There is something very special.
25:36
I'm not going to speak for Palestinians who may want to
25:39
leave or may want to stay, but I certainly there's a few things
25:42
I've learnt with Palestinians. 1 is illiteracy rate, which means
25:45
their ability to recover is immense. 98% illiteracy rates.
25:49
They are the envy of the region. The other is Kathy.
25:52
When I was in Gaza City recently, I was surprised just
25:55
how much of that city still stands.
25:57
Colleagues and Palestinians I've met talked to me about day one
26:00
of the ceasefire. They were having cappuccino and
26:01
cake. I thought they were teasing me.
26:03
That was real. That's not a cliche about
26:05
Palestinians ability to bounce back.
26:07
It's because so many horrendous things have happened to them
26:10
over decades. They have systems in place and
26:12
an education rate in place to bounce back.
26:15
So by all means, let's have a ceasefire and let's give people
26:18
a chance to breathe. But let's of course ensure that
26:21
people get to still call their home home.
26:23
I mean, that's extraordinary, isn't it?
26:25
Amidst so much despair. I suppose you can cling on to
26:29
small fragments of hope in that way.
26:31
And and hope, perhaps, that Gaza can be rebuilt.
26:34
I really did. And there's certain things Kathy
26:36
people said. I remember a young colleague, 25
26:40
years old, her home has been destroyed.
26:42
She walks with me through hospital.
26:43
So she hears all those stories which are never ending.
26:46
Her own, her own marriage, she broke off because she doesn't
26:49
believe it's right to do that in a time of war.
26:52
She's 25 years old. We talked about the CS4 and she
26:55
was explaining how life came back and she said, James, we
26:59
love life. Now that struck me because I'm
27:01
Australian. We love life, you know, from the
27:03
UK, people here love life. People wouldn't say that
27:06
Palestinians say that. And I think it's because they
27:08
feel the fragility, but they feel the preciousness of it.
27:11
So my goodness, when they are given a chance based on their
27:15
knowledge of, you know, engineering and computer science
27:18
and medicine and simply a love of community, Yeah, there is an
27:21
immense reason to be hopeful. I.
27:23
Mean just standing back your 5 visits and, and what you've
27:28
absorbed from all of that. You know, you are a very senior
27:32
figure in the world's biggest humanitarian organization.
27:36
You know, do you feel helpless amidst what you see in Gaza?
27:43
On a, on a personal level and speaking for a lot of people in
27:46
the United Nations and a lot of brave, brave colleagues who are
27:49
on the front lines right now, there is definitely a sense of,
27:53
of anger and frustration that of course the benefit is when you
27:56
are in Gaza, you see the impact I get to see, I, I'm well aware
28:01
of the restrictions and denials of aid.
28:02
I also get to see UNICEF giving magic, you know, nutritional
28:06
food to a grandmother. So there is an anger and
28:08
frustration, but you have to channel that there is absolutely
28:11
not despair. You know, the ours is not
28:13
despair to hold. I don't think you don't cannot
28:15
possibly pass on despair to a new generation.
28:18
And unfortunately, Kathy, I do meet so many Palestinians who,
28:21
you know, who are far brighter, far, far sharper and who who
28:25
absolutely they themselves are not giving up.
28:28
So in that sense, I don't feel it's my right.
28:30
There are certainly images and stories and things I've seen and
28:34
things I've smelt that I wish I never had.
28:37
But overall, yeah, ours is not one to to give up for
28:41
Palestinians because as much as we're exhausted, as much as we
28:44
want to turn away, Palestinians on the ground living in tents
28:48
right now cannot turn away from this horror show.
28:51
Gaza is just one of your areas of focus.
28:55
There's so many conflict zones across the globe.
28:57
Does it take too much of your time?
29:00
Do you have to sort of pull back and go elsewhere, however
29:03
painful that might be? No, because I mean UNICEF is
29:06
lucky. We are in all these countries,
29:08
you know. So I have amazing colleagues in
29:09
Sudan, in Port-au-Prince, in the DRC, in Afghanistan.
29:14
And so in that sense, no, I'm very conscious myself.
29:17
If we look at Sudan, you know, Sudan has, Sudan has 5 million
29:20
children displaced. And as you and I said earlier, I
29:21
believe that in my heart as a child, as a child, a child in
29:24
Israel, child in Sudan, I think that the weight that, you know,
29:29
we have at the moment on this is very important because we see
29:31
international humanitarian law under absolute attack.
29:34
There are dangerous precedents being set in Gaza that that will
29:38
have that are at risk of having a spill on effect for children
29:41
in other countries. And that's why there is also,
29:44
you know, potentially A disproportionate focus right now
29:46
on what's being done to children, to mums, to women in
29:49
Gaza. Yeah.
29:50
I mean, we're not talking about Sudan the way we're talking
29:52
about Gaza. Is that wrong?
29:54
Yeah, absolutely. Oh, absolutely.
29:56
When you talk to a, when you talk to a woman and who will
29:59
have escaped what she's been through in Darfur and has walked
30:02
for 11 days and has held on to her child and has, has has just
30:06
the same level of passion and hope.
30:08
And particularly in Darfur. Because 20 years ago a lot of
30:10
those 27 year old women went through that and how they
30:13
thought they were getting a break from that and what they
30:15
will do to get their children educated.
30:17
There are great parallels. Every, every mum would do that
30:20
for their child. So there is no doubt that the
30:22
world has turned away from that. We have famine in Sudan, so
30:26
absolutely. But, you know, people watching
30:29
are horrified by what they see unfolding in Gaza when it
30:32
appears on our screens. They share the same horror about
30:35
Sudan. But it is there a sense of
30:37
compassion fatigue. How do you combat that?
30:41
Yeah, it's a great question. I think it is.
30:43
And I have a great deal of empathy for, you know, the
30:45
average person, the viewer and so on, because I, I, I
30:48
constantly try to, to, to challenge my own perspective on
30:51
things. And so I'm trying to reach out
30:53
to a broad array of people. And I feel that people who who
30:56
care are exhausted by what they see and they're frustrated by
31:00
not feeling like they can do enough.
31:02
Now I don't think that member states, people in positions of
31:04
power get to have compassion fatigue because you know, we are
31:08
seeing right now, for example, huge cuts to the aid sector
31:11
across the developed world. Now there are great reasons in
31:15
practice, in principle, why that is a terrible idea.
31:17
There's also fiscal reasons. It's very important that
31:19
audiences understand the savings made are so minuscule, yet the
31:23
impact that would have to adult a doctor in Gaza or a mum who
31:27
ends up in Chad are absolutely immense.
31:29
And they are great levels of soft power as well for
31:32
governments like the UK. I'm lucky to I get to travel
31:35
these places and I get to hear how people in Haiti and the DRC
31:38
speak about, for example, the the English government and the
31:41
way that they see that. So people are baffled as to why
31:44
they've had the carpet pulled out from beneath them.
31:46
Well, just finally then, make your pitch now.
31:48
What do you need from member states?
31:50
What do you need from the UK government?
31:52
Aid aid has to be back to A to a level that it was previously
31:56
years ago. You know you have.
31:57
To nought .7% nought. .7%. Of of gross national income.
32:01
And it, and it's less and it's less than that.
32:02
And there are large portions of a population who don't
32:05
understand that. And there are, it goes beyond
32:07
principle. We should be able to argue in
32:09
principle, Kathy, but you know, investing in a, in a girl in the
32:13
UK or in Bangladesh or in Kenya is the most cost effective thing
32:17
you can possibly do. And we're in a globalised world
32:19
now. So you can also make that case
32:20
based on migration and security. You know, you save money now
32:24
versus what things look like in 10 or 15 years.
32:26
So yet again, the practical arguments and the principal
32:30
arguments to invest for those governments who have space to do
32:34
that is overwhelming. James Elder, thank you very
32:37
much. That's it for this episode of
32:39
THE FORECAST. Until next time, goodbye.