The Current - UNICEF's James Elder on the children of Gaza

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

James Elder has been inside Gaza five times since October 7th. Now with a shaky ceasefire in place he discusses the costs of war and what needs to happen now to help those affected, especially children.

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Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. I just spoke with a woman who spent nine years trying to conceive, and now her only child, her son and her husband have just been killed. The look of despair, despair in her eyes. Immediately after, I'm talking to a mom who is watching her little boy die in front of her because he's denied medical evacuation.

That's James Elder. He is UNICEF's global spokesperson. Since October 7, 2023, he has been inside Gaza six times. On those missions, he became a conduit for showing the world the impact that this conflict has had, specifically on Palestinian children. According to the United Nations Agency, more than 64,000 children have been reported either killed or injured in Gaza since the conflict began. Now, with a shaky ceasefire in place, there is hope that number will not continue to rise. James Elder is in Canada this week, and he happens to be. in our Toronto studio this morning. Good morning. Matt, good morning. I said a shaky ceasefire. There have been a series of attacks by both Hamas and Israel. The ceasefire appears to be back in place at this moment. Where does that leave the ability to get aid into Gaza? It improves it, Matt, massively. There's a few really simple things. We need predictable humanitarian aid. People need to know it's predictable humanitarian aid. They need to know it won't be a few trucks, but the famine will be addressed as it should be. It needs to be fast. And for that to happen, you need multiple corridors.

So instead of one entry point, you know, that typically there has been really in the last six to 12 months, one entry point. There are five or six entry points across Israel or across the West Bank areas that Israel control. So forever, the lack of aid has never been a logistical problem. It's been a political problem. So everyone's breathing a sigh of relief, no one more so than Palestinians. And I know full well why, why everyone, your listeners included, want some hope out of this. And there is real hope, but the war's not over for children.

They are returning to rubble. their bodies are more compromised. Their immune systems are more compromised than ever before. And there's a level of psychological trauma that we can't quite put a finger on. So everything needs to be done at speed at triple. So what can be done to ensure that Israel allows aid to flow into Gaza? Well, what a great question. If you say that it's not about supply, that it's about logistics in some ways and getting it through those border points.

Well, we've had this problem for two years. I mean, it's very, very simple. The legal responsibility sits with Israel. I mean, we've never had a famine before whereby everything children need, and by that I don't just need food. It's not just a blockade of food. It's a blockade of incubators. It's a blockade of medicines. It's a blockade of tents for 1.9 million people who've been displaced. So Israel controls that power. You know, the famine is, unfortunately, is a man-made famine. The deprivation is, you know, when we talk about 97% of schools damaged or destroyed, basically every single school damage or destroyed,

You know, these are political choices, same with the entry of aid. So to answer your question, Matt, pressure, and pressure has invariably come from the United States. But all other countries, you know, we saw recently, we saw statements from Canada, from France, from the United Kingdom. These are important, you know, there has to be a feeling of pressure that impunity can no longer exist. And at the very least, that humanitarian aid, of all things, food, water, medicines, education supplies, Matt. You know, we've not been allowed as UNICEF to get education supplies into Gaza for two years. Now, education is the bedrock of Gaza. Palestinians have one of the highest education rates in the world.

Education is the sole reason or primary reason how this bounces back. If Palestinians are to bounce back from unprecedented horrors, it's on the back of their immense pride and fortitude in education. But to be blocked education supplies, that has to shift and that is solely a decision for political, make it political decision makers in Israel. What about Hamas? What has to be done to ensure that the ceasefire is maintained and that the aid that gets in actually gets to the people who need it? So two things. One is political. So I've got to be cautious. I have a humanitarian mandate. UNICEF we're able to operate in the front lines of Gaza or Ukraine or or, you know, Yemen because of our neutrality. But the ceasefire agreement is very clear in the second phase. The second phase

of the ceasefire agreement is for disarming. So. Are you concerned at all by what you see, Hamas seems to be reconstituting itself? I mean, not just executing people in the streets, but also there's a turf war that seems to be unfolding right now, and Hamas is trying to reassert its power. I don't think anyone was surprised. I think when there is a decimation of a place that there was always going to be a power vacuum, and the power vacuum needs to be fixed very quickly with whatever discussions are of those major political players who have drawn up this ceasefire plan.

For UNICEF, we can now access many more parts of the Gaza Strip that we can now access many more parts of the Gaza Strip that we couldn't for a simple reason that previously any movement at all had to be coordinated with the IDF. You can't move without that. So you get permission to move. Then you go and sit at a holding point. You might sit there for six hours and we might only then be given many times I've done this matter and you're only given approval to take vaccines at 5 o'clock at night, but they know that we won't distribute in the nighttime. And so the mission has to return. So right now without bombardments, without snipers, we are reaching parts of the Gaza Strip we haven't previously reached. We saw during a ceasewe. We saw during a cease

fire, you know, we had 400 distribution points. That's a game changer. So again, it's not a logistical problem. Humanitarian aid is about two things going to where people need it. And that was 400 distribution points. And then making sure that you're reaching your target audience. And that's what you want to see malnutrition go down. You want to see access to vaccines go up. So all those things can happen. So we have more security and more safety to move now. But yes, ceasefire needs to hold and we need to make sure there's not fighting on the ground. Journalists have not been allowed in to Gaza. And so what we have seen are the images that have come out, but not independent reporting from outside. What does it look like? Yeah. Firstly, it's a very, I mean, I have so many

colleagues on the ground, Matt, who have no communication background and just say, James, get international journalists in here five minutes of an international journalist and all the myths are debunked. The myths are debunked. What myths are debunked? Well, just that this was a war fought with any respect of international humanitarian law. I'm talking about entire cities. that I saw Khan Yunus, an entire city that is pretty much reduced to rubble, 360 degrees. I promise myself you never, you know, say that we've run out of words. That would be redundant. Sitting here talking to you on radio.

But it's apocalyptic. You look 360 degrees and it's rubble. That's the same in Raffa. I had great hope when I went to Gaza City in June because previously I'd only ever gone through Gaza City. I'd not stayed there. I stayed there in June and I saw so much of the high-rise, so much of the apartment blocks, still standing.

and I had real hope and Palestinians said to me, James, we wish you were here in the ceasefire. You know, supermarkets, Norwegian salmon in there, cappuccinos and cake in coffee shops. That ability to bounce back is not a cliche. That's based on education rates. That's based on architects and logisticians and engineers and doctors. But that was June. And since then there were more than a thousand strikes in Gaza City in a few week period. The IDF was putting armoured vehicles laden with explosives at the foot of tower block so that the rubble would become part of those explosions.

So when I talk of 97% of schools damaged or destroyed, 84 out of five homes, people in Palestinians, mostly middle class, like Canadians, you put a couple of decades of your savings into a home. It was gone in a flash. So it looks like utter devastation, water system, sanitation points, destroyed after the ceasefire had been broken. So the enormity of what needs to be done is impossible to overestimate.

But if journalists saw it, Matt, they would see scenes that, eclipsed the destruction of Aleppo. They would see, you know, rubble as far as the eye can see. They would see, you know, a million people living now in one of the most crowded cities on earth because of the sheer density of people being forced into tents who previously had homes or apartments or holiday homes. This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little.

You've got to be Scarborough, defined by our uphill battle in always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing. Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo.ca.a. Norval Morso is one of the most famous indigenous artists ever. Looking at his paintings, it's easy to see why. Colors are intense. Color as medicine. But look a little closer, and you'll see something else. Fakes. We believe it's the world's biggest art fraud.

There are thousands of fake Norval-Morosso paintings beneath some of these forgeries, assaults, abuse, and even an unsolved murder. I want my paint, black. I know you kill that boy. Forged. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts. You've said, these are your words. Everyone bears some responsibility for this, but there's only one victim. Yesterday, today, and without meaningful action, tomorrow, Palestinian children. UNICEF has said that over 64,000 children in Gaza have been either killed or maimed since the war began. What sort of medical care can they receive in Gaza right now? Yeah, it's a great question.

On the penultimate visit when I was there in June, something I noticed, I've seen injuries to children that I'd never thought I would see, and I've done this work for just over two decades with UNICEF. But in a hospital, it's wall to wall. So you walk down a hospital and there are children with the wounds of war with with shrapnel injuries, with burns. I didn't know there was such a thing as fourth degree burns with with broken bones from bomb blasts from airstrikes. A lot, a lot of children shot by quadcopters. And as you walk through these hospitals, despite the best efforts of healthcare workers, you know, children are on hospital floors. In June it was the first time I didn't just see these wounds. I heard those wounds. I heard the screams of those children because they didn't have the painkillers. painklers that the necessary quantity were blocked. So there are three and a half thousand just

over children who need medical evacuation. Somehow they survived, though, that bomb blast. The quadcopter being shot while they were evacuating or they've got, you know, they've got cancer or they've got leukemia. So we need a lot of countries to open their doors. We need Israel to allow those children out. We need a lot of countries. You know, Canada has stepped up in many, many ways. It stepped up in its voice. It's stepped up fiscally. And I do think countries right now are looking for countries in that middle soft power area to fill a vacuum. And I think that's a chance. But goodness me, when I look at like Toronto Pediatric, I also see a place where some children's lives would be saved if they could get out of Gaza and get the medical help

they need. And can they? At this point? No. Not to not to the levels that they need. At the moment, it's a lack of exit points, but mostly it's a lack of Western nation. opening their hospital doors and I would say their hearts to those children who are hanging on. I've seen way too many children who've survived somehow those injuries, a quadcopter or a bomb blast or an aerial attack on their home, but they've died three weeks later from injuries because the hospital simply didn't have the care at need or just had far, far too many people. I mean, we're talking about wounded children. This last time, Matt, was the first time I ever saw mums and newborns on hospital floors. So such as the

the level of women giving birth prematurely, one in three moms give birth prematurely or to underweight babies. That's based on stress and malnutrition of mums. It's not just, it's not just babies, but also just how hospitals are overrun, and there's a sheer lack of hospitals because they've been under attack. So it was mums and newborns on hospital floors. It was a baby who'd been in an incubator for 21 days, and suddenly now she's a third of her weight. She's lying on a hospital corridor with her mum. These are mums who also know what breastfeeding, how important is they know that how nutrition, how important nutritional value is. So they're well aware of what their children aren't getting.

What do you see as, and we've spoken about this on the program before, the long-term psychological impacts of this war on kids in Gaza, but also kids in Israel. I mean, this region has gone through something in the last few years that will have deep scars. Yeah, absolutely. And it's a, you know, my executive director said it very well. Two years ago, it was always going to be a political solution. and why have we taken so long? And hers was peace in the Middle East for children in Israel,

for children in Gaza, for children in the West Bank, is not going to be gained by the destruction of Gaza and the killing of so many children. And yet here we are. And we saw, as well, when we look at hostages, these wonderful scenes in the last week or two, oh my goodness, some of those mothers, I mean, the abhorrence of what families in Israel

went through waiting for those people to get home. And yet, you know, more than 160 hostages went home during ceasefires, less than 10 during military means. It was always very, very clear how hostages are going to get home. And ceasefire is also how you get humanitarian aid to children. But we are, Matt, we're in uncharted territory as the best way I can describe it. We've never for UNICEF had a situation before where every single child requires some sort of mental health support. I've seen some of those immense things that they do.

I've seen the things that volunteers do. I've had children explain to me, you know, they've got a device where they try and turn, when they hear the bombing, they try and turn it down in their mind as if they're trying to adjust the level of bombardments, children who live now, you know, so close to sewage because all the sanitation systems have been destroyed saying, I try to eliminate the bad smells and imagine pleasant ones. UNICEF does a lot of work on that. Education is a key to that. You've got to get children back into those places.

But children also, Matt, they saw their primary carers, their mum and dad, lose the ability to protect them. They looked into their eyes a year ago and realized that. And parents are suffering from that psychological trauma. Parents now, as a child psychologist said, we are. getting into the worst period now because families are going home. They're going to sit on the rubble. They're going to realize their home's been destroyed. They're going to have a moment to breathe and realize that their mum, sister or daughter has been killed. So this is the time

more than ever that we need to step up. And again, education, which we've been denied in the last week of getting education supplies in. Education's a real, really big focus for UNICEF. You've said, these are your words. When the world adjusts and normalizes this level of violence and deprivation, something is profoundly broken. The strength of international law doesn't lie in words on paper, but in the resolve of countries to uphold it. Do you believe that international law has taken a fatal blow here? I couldn't say fatal. What's been broken then? What's been profoundly broken?

Any level of respect for it. Respect for international law. Absolutely. I mean, if you get to a point now reports of 20,000 girls or boys killed, it struck me heavily, Matt, and I get a chill when I think of this, because I've seen these children. I've seen mums and, you know, just like a mum in Canada, just holding, holding their child's hand as that child dies, or worse, you know, unable to put burn cream on a child with a fourth degree burn.

So we got to the point of 20,000 girls or boys now reportedly killed, and unfortunately, our numbers are pretty good. Now, 20,000 children, that's a child killed every single hour since the horrors of October 7. And I realized at some point that this wasn't really registering, and it was very good that the world started noticing when there was a famine and when they started seeing images of salvation it should never have got to that i mean i crunch numbers and it's it's more than a thousand babies it's more than a thousand children that didn't see a first birthday who were killed when that happens then there is something that that is that is completely broken and that's been

allowed to happen let's be clear that there are you know there are member states who have a level of of influence there and unfortunately i think there's been a there's been a systematic problem in the way this has been reported so what does that mean then for the u.n i mean you're an agency of the United Nations. How have the last couple of years eroded the overall trust in the UN's ability to deliver aid and to defend basic human rights and uphold the rule of law? Well, I think there's two different things there. In terms of defending international humanitarian law, that's up to member states. And that, unfortunately, we are there to pick up the pieces or as someone said, put on the band-aids, and that's not okay. But that's international

humanitarian law sits with how seriously the member states want to provide for that. And they should because it's been a bedrock for 20 or 30 years. There is a lot of reasons why countries are doing very well right now on the back of that. When it comes to delivering aid, it's a very important one. During the ceasefire, when we were allowed to deliver aid, 400 distribution points. We saw all the right indicators start to change in favour of children. Now, there are two parts here. There's aid diversion. There's allegations of aid diversion and there's looting. Aid diversion is simply on any scale is a myth. The US ambassador to Biden said very much. You say it's a myth. I say there's no credible evidence and it's never.

been presented. And unfortunately, we're at a point of a conflict whereby, you know, one of the parties, in this case, Israel, who, when there are consistent issues with statements made that are then proved to be demonstrably false, media will still always report, but they say as if somehow it's necessary for balancing a story. And that's problematic. Yes, we need international journalists on the ground. I fail to see for me, after 20 years, why I haven't, I'm not a credible neutral source. For me, we're not a political organization. We're not a media source. But when I see a child starving. I have to say this child has a right to food, which is three kilometers or three miles away. When I see a child that has been, you know, bombed in the home at two in the

morning, I have to say this child has a right to medical care. The idea that action hasn't taken on those fronts is problematic. But on looting, Matt, looting is important. Looting occurred absolutely no doubt. Looting is the economics of scarcity. Luting is where, you know, most recently, no, no aid was allowed in for 11 weeks. No food, no water, no medicine. Nothing entered the Gaza strip apart from bombs for 11 weeks. And then, you know, you do that in Toronto and you then allow a few trucks down a certain road, people will take what they need. What we're seeing now, if you get hundreds of trucks in a day and people trust humanitarian aid, there's no black market. Aid flows again. It's very simple. And the conditions were created for

looting to take place. Are you confident? We're almost out of time, but are you confident in the various parties that are involved here, whether it's Hamas, whether it's Israel, whether it's the United States, which obviously has enormous influence, to keep this situation as stable as possible, such that the people that you're talking about, the kids that you're talking about can get the aid that they need. I have to defer to so many Palestinians, Matt, who's spoken to me, and they have hope.

They are well aware of the... Do you have hope? You've been in and out. You know the situation really well. Look, they've had homes, loved ones, the ability to feed their child taken from them. The only thing Palestinians have agency over is hope. I looked in the eyes and I listened to so many people when I was most recently there

a week or two ago. And for the first time I had a sense, Matt, the first time this cannot go for another three months. We are permanent damage. It's already permanent damage on a child's body and cognitive decline when you get to serious levels of starvation. But it's permanent damage, the level of trauma, if this continues on a population. So I, too, go into their category and maybe a blind spot of hope because I just cannot imagine if this were to continue or to restart. you go, but what do you want, you're here in Canada, what do you want from this country? All in Canada to keep doing, to keep stepping up as it is in a political sense, keep using that voice, most certainly for UNICEF. This is the first time in our history. We've seen

a famine in Sudan, a famine in Gaza, and our funding hasn't changed one iota. You know, when we do cash assistance to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, or when we do our rebuild water systems and so on, there's no magic, magic supply of funds for this. It all comes from people. And I think Canadians are amazing when families and citizens make that choice to concern themselves with a child that they'll never know. I think that's one of the things where Canadians are known for around the world. James Elder, thank you very much. Thanks, Matt. James Elder is the spokesperson for UNICEF. He was with me in our Toronto studio. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk

to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.