The Current - Seeking aid in Gaza has become a terrifying experience: aid worker

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

As limited aid begins to enter Gaza after a months-long blockade, civilians are scrambling to access much-needed food and supplies. Gaza health officials say Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians trying to access aid in the past few days. A representative from Save The Children discusses the struggle to get aid to people who desperately need it — and about the humanitarian situation on the ground, which she says somehow gets worse every day.

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Palestinians have been without adequate and regular supplies of food, fuel, medical supplies and more for months. This weekend 31 people were killed and close to 200 others were injured when gunfire erupted at an aid station. The Israeli army has denied involvement in that incident. However, on Monday, Israeli forces did open fire on Palestinians heading toward the same aid distribution site. At least three people were killed, dozens more injured. And today, Palestinian health officials say another 27 people were killed when Israeli forces opened fire. Israel says its troops fired near a few individual suspects who approached its forces and ignored

warning shots. Israel's military denies opening fire on civilians. This violence has further complicated the already desperate aid situation. Rachel Cummings is the humanitarian director in Gaza with Save the Children. She is Ender Albala. Rachel hello. Hello, hi. Thank you for joining us. What impact is the violence that I described and that you have

been seeing, what impact is that having on the ability to get aid to people who need it? The events that are unfolding are extraordinary. We've seen the reports of people dying whilst trying to receive food from the distribution points. Since the 2nd of March humanitarian supplies, there's been a blockade on Gaza for humanitarian supplies including food, flour, medicines to enter into Gaza. There's currently around 9,000 trough of humanitarian supplies waiting on the wrong side of the border. We know how to provide assistance and support for people in Gaza, but right now we're unable to do our jobs.

People are hungry, they are exhausted, they are scared and constant bombardment, constant bombing of civilian populations, constant evacuation and displacement. It's honestly, it's an extraordinary situation that people are in. Do the Palestinians that you're speaking with, do they feel safe and going to get aid at this point? You know, there is no safe place in Gaza. Nowhere is safe in Gaza. And yesterday one of my colleagues shared that his family member had made the difficult decision to go to one of the distribution points to collect food, to try to collect food. And it was a very, very difficult decision for that individual and the impact on that family just, people were terrified that he wouldn't return.

The choices people are having to make are impossible choices that we cannot comprehend. People choosing to go into this potentially very dangerous environment, or people choosing not to go, or to stay in their tents or in their locations, knowing that no food is available. These are impossible choices for people. What about yourself? As an aid worker in Gaza, do you feel safe? We are very protected in our sort of organizational protocols that we have.

That doesn't just extend to me. And it extends to the whole team in terms of our ability to provide a degree of safety and security for our team, in terms of their movements, the office, et cetera. But as I said, nowhere is safe in Gaza. So we have to accept the risks of working here. But of course, that is balanced with the impact that we're able to have in Gaza for serving children here.

But you know, it gets harder and harder. Every day I say it can't get any worse. Every day it actually does get worse for children here. And our ability to deliver, our ability to navigate, the complexity, the security, the supplies, it's very, very challenging, yeah. Can you just give us a sense as to how much aid is currently available in Gaza? Some aid has been, I mean, you mentioned the blockade,

and some aid has been coming into Gaza in recent weeks. How much is actually available? Yeah, maybe, I don, you mentioned the blockade, and some aid has been coming into Gaza in recent weeks. How much is actually available? Yeah, maybe, I don't know the numbers actually, but maybe in the last couple of weeks, since there was the UN were allowed to bring in some flour, some food for hot kitchens, and some medicines. Yes, some aid has arrived into Gaza, but not obviously at the volume required. We see some evidence of

this in terms of the availability of supplies on the market, but there isn't really very little available in the market, some fresh vegetables, but very, very limited. And of course, all of that becomes very, very expensive and really unreachable and attainable for the majority of people here. You know, since the beginning of the war, there has been no injection of cash, physical cash into Gaza. So the prices are very, very high. Cash is very, very limited.

And all of this has a knock on effect in terms of the availability of people's purchasing power to be able to actually buy things off the market. So very little age, but this is on top of hospitals being closed, hospitals being in evacuation zones, schools obviously being targeted, 80% of schools and infrastructure has been damaged during this war. All of this is compounding factors, compounding complexity for people. And just this morning I was talking to my team, some of my team members who are employed, they are supported as much as we can by an organisation and that happens across the humanitarian

community. But they are very much people in survival mode, they're existing and surviving. And every day they're thinking, okay, where is the next meal coming from? How do I feed my children? How do I get firewood to do some cooking to feed my children a hot meal before they go to bed? And these are, you know, my team, again, who have a salary, but yet it's very, very difficult for them. So, you know, obviously we think very much

about the most vulnerable people in this community, people who don't have an income, women who head up households, the elderly, the disabled, children who also are in a position where they have to head up households or take on adult responsibilities like finding water, finding food, desperate for everybody in Gaza. The aid that is coming in is being distributed by an organization called Gaza Humanitarian

Foundation. This is a US and Israeli backed private organization. It's been dealing with the aid distribution since May. What impact is their presence on the ground having in terms of how aid is or is not reaching the people who need it the most? As far as I'm aware, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation are currently running three distribution points

in Ruffa in the South, and one has been newly opened in the middle area near the Nusrat, near the Nusrinqoido. But the volume and scale of the need is beyond four distribution points and we've seen the images of the absolute chaos and danger providing food in this way. Organisations like Save the Children, the UN Community, WFP, other partners, we have decades of experience of working in Gaza and we know how to provide food and humanitarian assistance in a dignified and safe manner. And relationships with communities, which again we've invested in and we are respectful of communities, and how we communicate with communities over time,

is not understanding where aid is coming from and how they will be able to receive it. This is what's missing, it seems, is community engagement and understanding from people. Again, there is food available on the wrong side of Gaza to be able to provide safe and dignified distributions at household and community level for people to be able to receive the assistance that they require. As I said again, we know how to do our jobs.

We need to be allowed to do our jobs. The UN and other great aid groups have been very critical of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The former executive director stepped down after reporting in the New York Times and elsewhere about the group's independence and whether it actually could operate independently. To save the children, have confidence in this organization to be able to distribute the aid that's needed? No, we have no confidence in the methods that have been presented by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. There is nothing humanitarian about what is being witnessed and reported on their distribution from these points. And again, we need to be allowed to do our jobs.

Humanitarian supplies need to enter Gaza at scale, including North Gaza, where the population in North Gaza has been any supplies ensuring entry Gaza for many, many months. It's deeply, deeply concerning. So no, the evidence that we've seen thus far, the reports that we've seen thus far, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is not able in any way, shape or form to meet the needs of the population in Gaza. I'm going to let you go, but one of the things that you said earlier was that every day I say it can't get worse for children in Gaza, and every day it gets worse for children in Gaza. What are you most concerned about right now?

Say the children in Gaza is running health facilities, we're running nutrition services in communities, we're providing child protection through our child-friendly spaces, education through our temporary learning spaces. And every day we see more and more children coming with malnutrition, normal children with diarrhoea, with pneumonia, and as currently concerning is the number of children now and children share trauma with us in whichever space that we're providing, whether that's learning, nutrition or child protection. And recently we've seen an increase in the number of children sharing with us that they wish to be dead and that they wish to be with their mothers or their fathers in paradise.

In paradise, there is food, in paradise there is water and in paradise there is love. This is a significant concern for saving children and for the whole humanitarian community in Gaza. What we do to support those children, we can do. Whatever we can do, we will do. But of course, we know we're not able to reach all of the very, very concerning, obviously, for the now, but also for the medium and longer term. The impact on the whole population of Gaza, yeah, is very, very concerning. Rachel, thank you very much for speaking with us. Take care.

Thank you. Rachel Cummings is the humanitarian director in Gaza for Save the Children. This has been The Current podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m. at all time zones. You can also listen online at cbc.ca slash The Current or on the CBC Listen app or wherever

you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.