Humanitarian workers in war-torn Gaza 'play Russian Roulette' every day aiding civilians in distress

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00:00Well, no, journalists outside of Gaza have been allowed by Israel to enter the enclave

00:05in the past year. So verifying information and getting human stories out of Gaza is hard.

00:13Ahead of the one-year anniversary today, I spoke to Arwa Damon. She is a former CNN journalist

00:20who has been able to travel to Gaza this past year through her work with the charity Inara.

00:26Here's our extended interview.

00:28Arwa Damon, it's been a year of war in Gaza. I know you've traveled there several times

00:34as part of your work with the charity Inara. You were there, I think, last in August. And

00:39look, as Palestinians mark what is a devastating 12 months that have killed so many people,

00:45rendered the vast majority of Gaza unlivable now, just first of all, I wonder what your

00:51reflections are at this one-year point.

00:56You know, it's been a year and it's still really hard to comprehend and even begin to

01:01articulate the sheer level of tragedy that Gazans are going through. And it eclipses

01:09just the physical destruction. You continue to see the psychological destruction of every

01:15single individual, even those that are trying to put on these extraordinary brave faces,

01:21mothers who are trying to hold it together for their surviving children who are unable

01:26to properly mourn their children who have been killed in all of this. You see it in

01:33children who are trying to be strong and hold it together for their parents. And when you

01:38talk to people from Gaza, no matter what their age is, that spark of life that all of us

01:43have in their eyes, that's where you really begin to understand the depths and breadth

01:48of the sort of psychological crushing of Gazans because that spark of life, it's gone.

01:54And the thing is, is the threats to them are relentless and daily and there's no respite

02:00from it, not even for a minute, not for a single minute over the last year have Gazans

02:06really been able to just pause and take a breath.

02:09And one thing that strikes me as we mark this one year and the toll it has taken on Gaza

02:15is that Palestinians sometimes are just numbers, aren't they? We talk about 41,000 people dead,

02:23but it is hard to kind of wrap your head around that figure to quantify it, to put a human

02:27face on it. And, you know, given that you have worked there so often, you work quite

02:32a bit with children. I wonder what particular stories from Gaza stay with you.

02:40You know, I met a little girl at one of the hospitals and she had just come out of surgery.

02:47Her intestines had basically spilled out after a bomb blast and she was in the care of her

02:53aunt and her aunt had not yet had the heart to tell her that her parents were dead. I

03:03met a mother who came up to us with her little boy because she knew that we worked with children

03:10and that we also have a focus on mental health. And she said, you know, I don't know what

03:15to do about my son because every night he he rocks back and forth and he screams and

03:21shrieks and he's been like this ever since he saw his younger sister's head blown off.

03:28I remember the the little children who were running around, you know, barefoot in an open

03:34sewage right next to it. I remember the children who were covered in this horrific skin disease.

03:41It's called impetigo. And it basically causes these horrible blisters that then puss and

03:48ooze open and is very widespread across all of Gaza who are in the hospital because they

03:52have especially severe cases of it. And normally the treatment for it would be so basic. It's,

03:58you know, you tell the parents, you know, wash the child twice a day with soap and apply

04:02this cream. Only there's no soap or cream in Gaza. And so, you know, whenever I actually

04:07think about it and I start talking about it, I just have these images that flash in front

04:12of my mind of the faces of those who who I've met. And what makes it even more tragic is

04:19that the need grows every day. And yet our ability as humanitarian organisations to

04:24actually provide for the people, it shrinks. We get more and more blocked as every single

04:30week goes by by the Israelis.

04:31And I do want to ask you in a moment about the particular challenges that your organisation

04:35Inara faces. But, you know, you mentioned something so shocking that that actually families

04:40in Gaza don't even have soap. Just spell that out for us on the basics of humanitarian aid.

04:48Is medicine getting into Gaza? Is food getting in? What's happening right now?

04:53You know, it's all very sort of unnecessarily, almost deliberately obstructive and and complex.

05:01A little bit of medicine does get in. Food does get in, but it's mostly on commercial

05:09trucks, which means that, you know, in the southern part of Gaza, for example, you can

05:13go to the market and buy fresh vegetables. But most Gazans can't afford that. Some items

05:19are 25 times more expensive than they used to be. But what this means is that aid organisations

05:24like mine can go out and distribute fresh vegetable parcels. But the need is so big

05:30that obviously, you know, no one can reach everybody. But then also in the southern part

05:35of Gaza, southern and central Gaza, while you do have these, you know, fresh vegetables,

05:41you don't have soap. Soap is not really getting in. Sanitary kits, hygiene kits are not really

05:48getting in. Israel's not allowing them to get in. And then we also face the added challenge

05:54of when Israel does clear pallets, it clears them from a specific crossing point called

05:58Kerem Shalom. And Israel dictates to aid organisations which route we can use to go and pick those

06:05pallets up. The specific route that Israel designates for this has a chunk of it that

06:10is basically run rampant by criminal gangs and looters. And so we're not able to safely

06:17pick up these pallets if and when they are actually cleared. And Israel is not providing

06:22us despite numerous requests with either giving us an alternative route to use or somehow

06:28securing that one route that it is designating for our use. And so, yes, you end up with

06:32this almost absurd situation where, and this isn't just UNADA, this is all aid organisations,

06:39you can't even provide people with something as basic as a bar of soap.

06:45And look, the world right now is so focused on what is happening in the Middle East, these

06:49Iranian strikes on Israel, the Israeli incursions which have begun now into the south of Lebanon.

06:55It is important to emphasise though, Awa, at the same time, the airstrikes on Gaza,

07:00the Israeli airstrikes are very much still continuing. Tell us a bit then about how difficult

07:06in those circumstances it is for your organisation, Inara, to keep working? I mean, what kind

07:12of risks are your staff facing to go out and do this job every day?

07:17Well, you know, anyone who's working in Gaza, anyone who's actually in Gaza is basically

07:24playing Russian roulette every single day, because there is no safe space in Gaza. And

07:31even the so-called humanitarian zone is not a humanitarian zone by any stretch of the

07:38imagination. It's not a humanitarian zone because, you know, the conditions there are

07:44simply put inhumane. And it's not a humanitarian zone because it's not safe. There have been

07:49multiple strikes that have taken place on Mawassi, for example, on tented encampments

07:56on the beach. That is an area that Israel specifically told people to go to because

08:02it is beachfront, because it is sand dunes. And as such, Hamas would not have dug tunnels

08:08underneath it. And yet we are still seeing Israel drop bombs on these areas that are

08:13leaving behind nine metre craters. And so it's a risk every single day for every single

08:21resident of Gaza and, yes, for all aid organizations, including my team, to go out. And, you know,

08:28when the evacuation orders came for some areas of Deir el-Balah back in August, you know,

08:34Inara had team members that ended up having to evacuate. And then we also had some of

08:39the shelters that we work with whose residents had to evacuate, which obviously creates complete

08:44and total chaos, because, again, it's this thing that, you know, has been said since

08:48the beginning. Where do you actually evacuate to? The space in Gaza where civilians even

08:53exist has been shrinking while the number of civilians trying to survive in them has

08:59been growing exponentially. Right. And I did want to ask you about displacement, actually,

09:04because the figures suggest at least nine in 10 Gazans have now been displaced by this

09:09war, many of them more than once. You know, you mentioned that your organization works

09:15on mental health as well. And can you speak to that? I mean, how are people coping with

09:20the trauma of the displacement as well as, of course, these bombardments?

09:25Well, and let's also be very clear that when we talk about mental health in this context,

09:32it's very basic, because while the trauma is still ongoing and while the triggers are

09:37still there, you can't really begin to do the sort of deep kind of work that is actually

09:43needed. And so what it looks like, and we focus on children, is basically creating activities

09:49for them, creating a distraction for them, trying to give them some tools to be able

09:54to cope with the constant fear that they're having to live with. And then, yes, of course,

10:00there is the trauma of displacement, of losing that sense of security of home, not just once,

10:07but then multiple times. There's the trauma for a child of, you know, looking towards

10:13their parents and realizing that your parents that are meant to be your pillars of strength

10:19and security can no longer provide you with that. And then, of course, there is the ongoing

10:26trauma of not having enough food, not having enough water, not being able to go to a proper

10:31bathroom, of being subjected to numerous communicable, highly preventable diseases.

10:38In Nassar Hospital, for example, there are two children dying a week, according to the

10:42head of the pediatric department, from hepatitis A. And then, of course, on top of all of this,

10:48you have the bombings that are constant. And then even when the bombing sound is relatively

10:54far away, you have the drones that are buzzing overhead as if they're pervasively taunting

10:59the population with this, you know, refrain of, oh, you think you've survived, but we

11:04still have our eye on you. We can still come at you.

11:08I just want to ask you one final question, Arwa Damon. You're in Lebanon at the moment.

11:13Israel says the ground war there, which as we speak, is just getting underway, will be

11:18limited, will be focused on Hezbollah. I wonder whether you see any parallels in the language,

11:26in the way the Lebanon campaign is being talked about now, and how Gaza was talked

11:31about a year ago?

11:33Well, you see parallels in how Israel says that it is carrying out, you know, targeted

11:39operations and yet drops massive bombs that cause extreme civilian casualty. And this

11:47is, you know, sort of especially seen in the Lebanon context, because Israel has also actually

11:54carried out very precise strikes where they have hit a specific apartment within a building

12:00without bringing the whole building down. And the Lebanese are able to contrast that

12:05with strikes that have, you know, leveled entire blocks and with what they have seen

12:09happening in Gaza. You see this in a lot of the rhetoric coming out of Israel that was

12:16to a certain degree similar to what we heard when Gaza first began. But then we also need

12:23to remember that, you know, the last time Israel said that it had Knesset approval to

12:29carry out a limited 10-kilometer incursion into Lebanon was back in 1982. And Ariel Sharon,

12:37who was the minister of defense back then, ended up all the way in Beirut, and Israel

12:43occupied back then Lebanon for nearly 20 years. And so many people here fear that, you know,

12:50they are going to suffer the same fate as Gaza with this widespread, horrible destruction

12:55taking place, that, you know, Israel has plans to stay for an indefinite amount of time or

13:04to permanently displace the Lebanese population. And there is this pervasive fear of uncertainty

13:10that is even more amplified, because remember, the Lebanese have been watching everything

13:14that has happened in Gaza. They know that Gazans have basically been live streaming

13:19their own slaughter, and that did not stop it from happening. And so they don't know

13:24what, if anything, is going to stop them from suffering the very same fate.

13:30Arwa Damon, thank you so much.

13:36We recorded that interview last week with Arwa Damon.

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