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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.