Consider This from NPR - "A Complete Catastrophe:" The Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

In Gaza doctors are operating without anesthesia. Fuel is running out. Food is running out. And trucks full of it can't get through — including those from the UN World Food Programme or WFP.NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Cindy McCain, the WFP's Executive Director, about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza which she calls "a complete catastrophe."Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

With Israel's ongoing siege and bombardment of Gaza, the humanitarian crisis there is growing more dire every day. The health sector is operating at less than 5% of its capacity. You have people on ventilators, you have people in ICU units, you have children in incubators, and you have a fuel that is about to run out. The fuel now, as we are speaking now, they have a few hours left. That's Mohassan Sarhan, the CEO of the Egyptian Food Bank, one of the aid organizations leading the effort to get aid into Gaza from Egypt.

We spoke to him on Wednesday when the fuel supply was running dangerously low. Also low in stock? Medical supplies. Without them, people are resorting to desperate, brutal measures. Five or six days ago, the hospitals there started doing surgeries without anesthetics. Could you believe that this is happening in the modern world? This is medieval. This is medieval. Israel began its siege and bombardment of Gaza after the Hamas attack October 7th that Israel says killed 1,400 people. In Gaza, the health ministry says the death toll there has surpassed 7,000.

Meanwhile, aid has only started to trickle in. As of Thursday evening, just over 60 aid trucks have been allowed to cross from Egypt into Gaza, delivering much-needed assistance. Sarhan says that is a tiny fraction of what's needed. It's a drop in an ocean. It's not a drop in a bucket. It's a tiny drop in an ocean of death. Consider this. The need for basic supplies, food, water, fuel, medical supplies, is growing every day in Gaza. Several areas have already run out and fleets of trucks full of aid from Egypt can't get through. What's on the way? And what can be done about it? From NPR, I'm Juana Summers. It's Thursday, October 26th.

It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers. Mohamed Hawajiri is a nurse and medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. He told us that his work never ends there, operating on a few hours sleep, then coming right back to the overcrowded hospital. Doctors are operating without anesthesia. Fuel is running out. Food is running out. And trucks full of it can't get through, including those from the UN World Food Program. Cindy McCain is the executive director of the agency. She just returned

from the region and spoke to my co-host, Mary Louise Kelly. I know that you are in contact with World Food Program staffers on the ground. You've still got several dozen there, like 90-something. What are they telling you? What's your current understanding of the situation? Well, it's a complete catastrophe. We have people that have been moved around that are, you know, they're IDPs within the country. Internally displaced persons. Right. They have no food. They have no water. They have no fuel. And what does that mean? That means that they're, number one, they're starving to death. And number two, there's going to be disease like nobody's business unless we get in there.

And the trouble is, as you said, there have been a few trucks that have gotten over the border. That doesn't mean anything. We need hundreds of trucks to get across the border to help mitigate what this catastrophe could mean. Yeah, I was looking. It is a few dozen that have gotten in through the weekend. Normal crossing would be 400 trucks a day. So it's a tiny trickle in the bucket. I also, just to follow up on fuel, the United Nations is warning that UNRWA, the largest humanitarian provider in Gaza, they say they will run out of fuel tonight. So like as we speak,

your organization is warning that there's enough food left for about 12 days. And then what? What happens? Well, number one, you're correct about the fuel. The fuel is gone. Number two, with regards to our own situation there, the numbers vary from place to place and from region to region within the country. Bottom line is there isn't enough food. Bottom line, people are starving to death.

And as always, it's women and children that take the brunt of this. We need immediate, sustained, and safe access to get into that country to help save lives. And we don't have it right now. We've been given a truck here, a truck there, which means nothing in the scheme of things. As you said, we need there, which means nothing in the scheme of things. As you said, we need hundreds of trucks to go in. How hopeful are you that the situation will change? Boy, I'm the eternal optimist in many ways, but I'm not hopeful right now. I'm really not from what I'm seeing. We're seeing the political wills at bay. We're seeing, of course, people trying to mitigate the circumstances via negotiations, et cetera.

But nothing's working. Nothing's happening. Both sides are not talking. And number two, they're not dealing with the issue of people who are going to die. They're going to die as a result of no food, no water, no ability to support themselves. And without the opportunity and without giving the humanitarian access that we need, we can't do anything about it. And so it just breaks my heart. I lose sleep over this at night.

Just to make sure I understand the situation, is the food there? Are the supplies there, like lined up, ready to go, and you just need somebody to lift the gates and let them through? We have quite a few, and by quite a few I'm not going to give numbers because it varies, but we have way in the high double digits of trucks outside the Rafah Gate that could go in immediately. And as you said, prior to the war, they were taking 400 trucks a day over the border in supplies and commodities, et cetera. So given the opportunity for free and unfettered access that's safe, yes, we could go in and feed a half a million to a million people, depending on where we are and what we were

doing. But we don't have that. And with the food that we have, which is strictly emergency food, I mean, this is the kind of thing that you don't have to cook. You can eat it immediately. We'll give you calories. We'll give you energy, that kind of thing. So who are you calling on to try to change this? Everybody. I was on Capitol Hill today talking to anybody who listened to me about this. But it's Egypt that controls that border crossing. It's Egypt right now for where my trucks sit. It's Egypt that is. I mean, both countries, Israel and Egypt, of course, are in this. And something has to be done from a diplomatic

standpoint. But that's not my arena. My arena is the humanitarian aspect of this. There are concerns being raised that aid that is intended and clearly desperately needed by civilians, that that aid could be taken by Hamas. Are you concerned about that? How do you prevent it? Not like other people are. And here's why. Because we have a sizable organization that was on the ground, we have people that are in positions that know the players, that know who the bad guys are, know who the good guys are. Now, with that said, we have the ability to track and trace. We have the ability to identify those who are supposed to get the aid by facial recognition, all those kinds of things, eye scans, et cetera. But the problem is it's a war zone. Things are going to happen.

And so to say 100%, can I guarantee? No, I can't. Just to broaden this out a little bit, you and I last spoke a little over a month ago, and the reason was that the WFP has a funding crisis. You were out of money. You were struggling to provide food aid, and that was even before this war between Israel and Hamas.

Where does this latest conflict leave you? Gosh. It's taken a critical situation worldwide to something that's near disaster. As you know, as we talked earlier, we've had to cut aid in many places. We've had to extremely limit aid in others. We've taken millions off the rolls of being able to have regular food. And this was prior to all of this. And now you double down with this kind of situation. And we're in a situation that's dire. Countries are coming to the aid of this particular crisis.

Yes, not enough, but they're coming. But still, the rest of the world is still at play here. The world's on fire. You go from the Sahel to Chad, go into Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen, Ethiopia, and on and on and on. And there just isn't enough money. There just isn't. In just a few sentences for people listening who are feeling powerless, what can we do? Well, what I tell people, and especially today on Capitol Hill and others, we can look at this two ways.

And here's what I would suggest. Number one, you can, with your heart, give money to people who are going to starve to death. Give organizations like mine and others. Or you can do it for national security interests, because this is a national security problem. That was Cindy McCain, executive director of the UN World Food Program, talking to my co-host Mary Louise Kelly. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers.