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IN THEIR OWN WORDS: Aid workers assess Gaza crisis
Written by: Natasha Elkington
A Palestinian boy stands next to his destroyed family's house in Jabalya. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem
As Israeli forces withdrew from the Gaza Strip on Monday, aid workers on the ground began assessing the scale of the humanitarian crisis following Israel's 22-day assault on Hamas militants. Here are their impressions, as told to AlertNet in telephone interviews. 'Everything destroyed' It's a catastrophe. They destroyed everything. Even our ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) hospital and buildings were damaged, and a lot of medical supplies destroyed. A huge number of families are without shelter. The U.N. is making shelters in schools. The Israeli helicopters also attacked a shelter for the homeless. Khalid Jodi, head of the Palestinian Red Crescent Hundreds if not thousands and thousands of houses are destroyed. Reports show in certain areas complete devastation, which will take months if not years to build up again. Of course, the main issue is the people, those who have been left disabled or worse by the war. There will be a huge job for all humanitarian agencies in rebuilding the infrastructure, the economy in Gaza, but it's really difficult to assess the scope of it at this point. Ola Skuterud, ICRC spokesman 'The most important thing is silence' The main issue is getting people food, drinking water and shelter. We...have an unknown number of people who are taking shelter from other host families. So now there are 20 or 30 extra people living in the houses. This is going to be one of the big challenges of the next phase of the aid effort, trying to find where people are and trying to get them aid as fast as possible. I talked to a colleague this morning and he said right now the most important is the silence. The fact that he can sleep through the night. You have no idea what it feels like to check on your children in the middle of the night and not fear that they are in danger of being killed. Sleeping for eight hours without waking up - that for me, is enough today. I will think about food tomorrow. Another colleague said the shops were open; some shops were able to bring food in. So in some areas there is food available in the markets. The problem is that most people there are experiencing a cash shortage. The Israeli govt has opened all the border crossings for medical evacuation only. But of course there is a huge demand, not just for aid, but for businesses to get their shops back and running. So we are waiting to get food and cash across to kick-start whatever is left of the Gaza economy. We are hoping that this ceasefire turns into a more prominent truce because we have a society that has been basically destroyed. Houses destroyed, hospitals destroyed, water systems, electrical systems, businesses starting from scratch. Last week, we were actually distributing fresh vegetables which we get from farmers there, but the problem was the farmers' fields were being bombed or they were being swamped with sewage. So the farmers were not able to harvest the crops, which means CARE was not able to distribute the food. Melanie Brooks, CARE International spokeswoman 'Traumatised children need specialist help' What we are seeing now on the ground is a humanitarian crisis. Before this all started there were 50,000 children who were malnourished in Gaza, and you are looking at three-quarters of the population being dependent on food aid. We needed at least 400 trucks a day to get through the borders, for everybody who needed food to get it. However, at the moment only a trickle of trucks are coming across, in some cases maybe nine only a day, in some cases about 30. I think the most that have come across is about 100. There are multiple obstacles we are facing. It's food, it's water, it's medical supplies, but also other items to do with children. They desperately need specialists who can go across the border and help children get over the trauma they might have experienced over the last three weeks. Education needs to be set up, which we feel is absolutely essential for children to feel they have a safe place to be in - an area that is protected, something they haven't felt at all since the 27th of December. We need personnel in there: engineers to rebuild schools. It is an absolutely enormous task and is made very difficult by the fact that the borders are only allowing a small trickle of aid to get through. Gaza is a very populated area - one of the most populated areas in the world - and you've got 40,000 children under the age of six months in there. It's a huge task. It can't be stressed how this ceasefire has to be permanent and immediate. If you go into a school, sometimes there are almost 2,000 people and they are sleeping on the floor. You've got a family of maybe 10 people and they are sharing one mattress and one blanket between them. One cleaner who cleans the toilet for all these people. The family would share a can of tuna or corn between them. As for the children, they have nothing to do. They are not enjoying being children. They have no structure to their lives, and that's why it's essential to get specialists in there who know how to deal with helping children to understand and move forward with their lives. Kate Redman, Save the Children media manager
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10 responses to “IN THEIR OWN WORDS: Aid workers assess Gaza crisis”
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21 Jan 2009 03:56:31 GMT
The poor children, poor babies! I am shocked that Israel did this - and to what end? Nothing is better for Israel, and they lost some lives too. Israel just wanted to crush as many Palestinians as they could before Obama took office. I hope Obama helps these poor people in Gaza, and that Israel no longer enjoys more money from the US than any other! The flow of cash and arms to Israel from the US must stop.
21 Jan 2009 08:13:08 GMT
I agree with you Stephanie its all about the children. The time has come to rebuild Gaza and return it to its former glory. This world our world must be based on civil societies. Hats off to UN they did not leave they stayed with the ones who needed us the most. I think the best thing the world could do is ignore Isreal like a spoiled child until they come to the United Nations and make ammends for this conflict. Then the United Nations should send them out on some really tuff peace keeping missions. That would bring honor and trust back to the nation of Isreal. The point I am trying to make is people make a difference not weapons.
21 Jan 2009 13:09:36 GMT
No, it's not just about the children. Old people, middle-aged, young adults and children. This terrorism is something that no people claiming to be civilized could possibly do, nor no people supporting them could possibly do. It is simply barbaric that powerful countries stand behind this despicable conduct. Western civilization will be destroyed from within when the powerful tolerate these acts. It is a God-less time in the palaces of the rich and powerful. Think again. Find a way. Before it is too late.
23 Jan 2009 08:46:58 GMT
Problem:
Israel & Palestine need to Consolidate their territory Good Fences make Good Neighbors Need to make the Gaza strip The Palestinian Homeland And Israel to purchase the West Bank Solution: Israel to Buy West Bank by Paying For Gaza Development Develop Coastline, ���Miami Beach It��� Give all Landowners in The West Bank A Waterfront Condo Dig Port & Intercostals like in Miami Beach Build Factories and Resorts to Create Jobs and homes for Palestinians Jobs first by the construction then Afterwards in the Factories Have Israel Import Labor for India or Else ware Instead of employing Palestinians The Make Jerusalem a Public Non residential area Build an Expressway like in Germany had to Berlin before the Wall came down no exits between Gaza and Jerusalem Public area Eventually the waterway could reach the Red Sea in Egypt23 Jan 2009 16:37:04 GMT
Unfortunately, there is a lack of perspective in the above comments. It is never easy to digest human suffering, nor should it be. We should always be heartbroken over little children suffering. The question, however, is who is responsible for it? One post called the Palestinian society "civil." How is it that Israel is condemned for these military operations, when the world barely says "boo" as Palestinians send their own children (yes, their CHILDREN!) into Israel with bombs attached to their chests to detonate in grocery stores, coffee shops, and on buses? Have you ever seen pictures of the aftermath of these suicide bombings? Have you seen the pictures of the human suffering that the Israelis have to live through every time another fanatic blows him or herself up, INTENTIONALLY taking as many CIVILIANS with them as possible? Israel does not intend for civilians to be killed when they conduct their military operations. In fact, they take great pains in preventing it as much as possible.
One of the problems is that the ruthless Hamas fanatics hide among civilians, store their weapons beneath schools, hospitals and mosques, and even shoot at their own people to blame Israel for war crimes! There was actually an article with interviews from civilians in Palestine who witnessed Hamas members (teenagers, by the way) firing into civilian homes in order to blame Israel publicly for civilian deaths. In the same article, a Palestinian doctor in Gaza said the death tolls were grossly inflated, and that most of the casualties were in fact Hamas members, many of them teenagers. And as an aside, the tolls of "children" who have been killed includes anyone under the age of 18. According to the doctor in Gaza, the vast majority of the teens killed were actually Hamas. http://www.ynetnews.com/23 Jan 2009 18:30:24 GMT
@ Kari
Where to start with your 'logic'. For starters, how do you evacuate a densely populated area when you are under siege with nowhere to go? How can Israel claim this enormously one sided campaign as 'self-defense' when Hamas has only the means to terrorize but never defeat you? There was a time in South Africa, where the Apartheid government claimed they were justified in shooting at a crowd of teenagers throwing stones. Why? * The youths were terrorist members of the ANC (read HAMAS) * They were throwing stones which injured (and very occasionally killed) policemen. * They were chanting 'one settler, one bullet' All these things were true, but shooting at them was absolutely wrong, no matter how shrilly the case is made. Even if your claims about Hamas shooting their own people are true, are you really claiming that this is the rule rather than the exception? How do you account for the testimony of so many foreign observers, NGO's and the UN which go completely against what you are saying? Furthermore, if a population takes the extreme position of maximizing their own suffering in order to draw attention to their plight, doesn't that say more about their intolerable position rather than less? Your arguments are desperately self-centered at best.23 Jan 2009 22:04:39 GMT
The Palestinian boy pictured is clearly a Hamas terrorists... as Kari clearly establishes with her bigoted diatribe: all Arabs are mangy animals, and Israel is right to keep them caged in perpetual desperation and destitution. The reality is that Gaza and the West Bank consist of millions of refugees that have been held under siege by Israel for what has now been generations without proper food, medicine, sewage, electricity, education, employment, or a homeland which you would think the Israelis of all people would be sympathetic to the need for. Stephanie called it, this was just a beat down before Obama took office.
As for branding Hamas terrorists... how do we remember French resistance against the Germans in WWII? And how do Israelis view Jewish terrorism against the British in what was then the Palestinian mandate? See for example, the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946. The West Bank and Gaza have been occupied for over forty years now, and been home to refugees for over sixty. As a point of interest, have a look at the map in this Economist article which shows how the Palestinians are corralled even in the relatively large West Bank: http://www.economist.com/23 Jan 2009 22:05:25 GMT
To Simon:
Thank you for your input, and I appreciate your compassion for the plight of the innocents in Palestine. I think the entire world ought to feel compassion for innocent people caught in the middle of a battle that isn't theirs. Again, the essential question I am raising is not whether we should feel compassion for Palestinian suffering, but WHO is responsible for it? Please realize, Simon, and all others reading these posts, that Hamas does not speak for all the Palestinians. I'm sure there are many who would like to live in peace with Israel. Unfortunately, Hamas has hijacked Gaza, and used innocent civilians to conduct their terrorist activities. It is the Islamists (the extreme Muslim groups who perpetrate violence to achieve their ends) who I propose are responsible. And, yes, Simon, I do think incidents of Hamas firing on civilians and blaming Israel for the casualties is a much more common practice than the "exception" you suggest it is. It is the most brutal form of warfare imaginable. It happened in Viet Nam, too. Do you remember all the stories of the Viet Cong sending children into military camps strapped with explosives? Who are the war criminals? You point out that Hamas cannot defeat Israel, but only has the power to terrorize. Let's say for a moment that's true. What is Israel's option? To accept terror as a part of their lives? To create borders that are impossible to defend? Would we? Can we ask any society to live with that?25 Jan 2009 10:11:16 GMT
"as Kari clearly establishes with her bigoted diatribe: all Arabs are mangy animals, and Israel is right to keep them caged in perpetual desperation and destitution."
This statement was never made by me, never hinted at in anything I said, and I deplore this sentiment in the strongest terms possible. As a point of fact, I never even mentioned the word "Arab" in my post, and I would never denigrate a human being to the level of "mangy animal." Please, a little more respect and intellectual honesty in your criticism. It is possible to make logical rebuttals without resorting to insult and accusation toward the dissenting voice.27 Jan 2009 05:01:16 GMT
I think everyone should read about the Balfour Declaration re: the Palestinian Mandate that UK's Parliament passed after WWI. It started the whole problem, and the reaction of Jewish holocaust surviviors toward European society is what culminated in the creation of Israel out of land populated with Jews, Muslims, and Christians living together.