Amid an intensifying war that has killed more than 8,500 people in Gaza and cut fuel, electricity, food, and water supplies to a captive population of 2.2 million people, international pressure is growing to address a humanitarian disaster.
Meeting the needs of 1.4 million displaced people in a war zone falls on the shoulders of United Nations agencies such as the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Andrea De Domenico, head of the agency in the occupied Palestinian territories, spoke Tuesday with The Christian Science Monitor about the U.N.’s efforts and Gaza’s unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
Why We Wrote This
War is dehumanizing. That’s where Andrea De Domenico comes in. As a key United Nations official coordinating relief for Gaza, he sees destruction and need all around. But he sees an opportunity, too – if we recognize a common humanity.
In an interview discussing the imperative for dramatically increased aid, he says the hardships unfolding for civilian Palestinians in Gaza are “simply beyond imagination.”
“The attack on the seventh of October by Hamas on Israel was horrific, brutal, violent, inexcusable. And we also witness a dehumanization element on the other side,” he says. “That is why our call is this: Let’s preserve a space for humanity. If we lose that, we not only lose our humanity, but we will not live in a better world tomorrow. Globally, there is a political echelon that is completely untouched and unmoved. For me, we cannot lose perspective. We have to put a limit to this suffering.”
Amid an intensifying war that has killed more than 8,500 people in Gaza and cut fuel, electricity, food, and water supplies to a captive population of 2.2 million people, international pressure is growing to address a humanitarian disaster.
Meeting the needs of 1.4 million displaced people in a war zone falls on the shoulders of United Nations agencies such as the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA. Andrea De Domenico, head of OCHA in the occupied Palestinian territories, spoke Tuesday with The Christian Science Monitor from his office in Jerusalem about the U.N.’s efforts and Gaza’s unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
What is the most important thing for the outside world to know about the humanitarian situation in Gaza?
Why We Wrote This
War is dehumanizing. That’s where Andrea De Domenico comes in. As a key United Nations official coordinating relief for Gaza, he sees destruction and need all around. But he sees an opportunity, too – if we recognize a common humanity.
The scale of human suffering and pain that is unfolding for civilian Palestinians in Gaza is simply beyond imagination. First of all, Gaza is the only place on the planet where, when a war starts, you cannot flee. It is as simple as this.
You have 1.4 million people displaced today; more than 600,000 are hosted in U.N. premises, UNRWA in particular, whose staff’s bravery and heroic efforts are commendable. There has been no electricity and very limited water for three weeks, and humanitarian aid is entering literally drip by drip, drop by drop. It is unsustainable.
Israel has restricted the entry of fuel into Gaza because it says it fears Hamas will use it. Why is fuel so important to the humanitarian response?
Fuel has affected everything from the butcher to the bakery to the supermarket to the hospital to mobile networks to the desalination plant. … All the groundwater in Gaza has been penetrated by seawater, so it is not drinkable without desalination. All these services depend on fuel-run generators.
My U.N. colleagues now have to prioritize the limited amount of fuel we have. Do we give fuel to the hospital where they are saving lives and the treatment plant where they are providing clean drinkable water for a population? Or do we give fuel to the OCHA team that has to go out, do an assessment, see people, and allow us to plan the humanitarian response? This impossible choice has been imposed on us by the dynamic of the current conflict.
A few dozen aid trucks are currently entering Gaza daily. The United States says it is trying to increase that number to 100. How many are needed to meet Gaza’s needs?
Before the war, under a blockade regime, there were 500 trucks traveling through Rafah daily giving a decent access to basic needs for people who had the means to purchase them. With the total obliteration of entire neighborhoods in northern and southern Gaza, it is very difficult to gauge: What is the right number? What I know is that there are at least 1.4 million people that every day need to be fed, have access to clean water, and have basic needs addressed, like hygiene.
Before the war, the highest rate of food insecurity in the region was in Gaza; they were aid-dependent. The aid that was stored and distributed was based on a functional city where you could cook and get water. Right now, one of the big problems is that the aid that is coming in is not matching the needs on the ground. You can no longer send beans because people don’t have gas or water to cook it. We need ready-made food and ready-made meals.
When you have 20 or 30 trucks coming in for 2 million people, you prioritize food, water, and medicine. But what about hygiene kits? What about bedding, blankets, and shelters for people who have lost their homes or have had their temporary shelter destroyed? What type of sanitation are you providing if you want to prevent the spread of diseases?
As an example, to provide the minimum level of water for survival for 2.2 million men, women, children, and infants in Gaza, we need to bring in 47 million liters of potable water for 10 days. In terms of trucks, that is 1,200 trucks over 10 days, or 120 trucks of water per day, just to maintain survival. We are really scraping the bottom of the barrel.
This week saw the ransacking of UNRWA warehouses by some Gaza families. Is this a sign of a breakdown of civil order?
People are being pushed to the brink of total desperation. The inability of the international community to respond to their needs is cracking the fundamental fabric of these communities, and it is breaking their trust in us.
People who didn’t have the means to buy what little was remaining in the market were desperate and willing to do anything to get their hands on something that may save their children. They attacked the main UNRWA logistics base, and it has been completely looted. How can you blame desperate people? We warned both [warring] parties: If we reach the point of civil unrest and break the trust of the people, this will progressively undermine our ability to deliver services. To keep people’s trust in us, we must follow the humanitarian principle of providing assistance wherever it is needed.
Hatem Ali/AP
Israel has called for the evacuation of hospitals in northern Gaza such as Al Shifa, claiming they housed Hamas militants. Why has the World Health Organization described such an evacuation as “impossible”?
There is no alternative to these hospitals. Around 64% of the 3,600 hospital beds pre-war were in the north, and the two largest hospitals, Al Shifa and Al Quds, are in the north – all due to the concentration of population. The current number of wounded is at 20,000 or more. In an American town in normal circumstances, it would take weeks to plan the evacuation of a hospital, assuming you have somewhere to go.
Unplugging the respirator to people in Al Shifa and unplugging the incubators for neonatal cases in Al Quds just because you want to transport them is a death penalty. There are claims of massive misuse of these hospitals [by Hamas fighters], but I am sorry: You have to find another way.
Both the U.N. and the European Union have called for “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza. Why are they important?
Humanitarian pauses are absolutely paramount. We need these pauses to allow us the ability to move, to reach civilians, to check and verify needs, to deliver the bare minimum of assistance. A pause will also help us reset our own ability to operate inside Gaza. You can’t do this when tanks are cutting the north from the south and firing on cars that at face value are transporting civilians.
From actions to rhetoric, does the dehumanization in this conflict pose an additional challenge to humanitarians?
What we are witnessing today is a complete lack of humanity. The attack on the seventh of October by Hamas on Israel was horrific, brutal, violent, inexcusable. And we also witness a dehumanization element on the other side. The U.N. has stood firm demanding the immediate freeing of Israeli hostages and their humane treatment.
But that does not mean because of these atrocities you can flatten an entire city. That is why our call is this: Let’s preserve a space for humanity. If we lose that, we not only lose our humanity, but we will not live in a better world tomorrow. Globally, there is a political echelon that is completely untouched and unmoved. For me, we cannot lose perspective. We have to put a limit to this suffering.