Frankly Speaking: What hope is there for Gaza’s children?

1 Could UNICEF avert a humanitarian catastrophe?
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2 No child should endure what has been inflicted on Gaza
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Updated 01 April 2024
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Frankly Speaking: What hope is there for Gaza’s children?

  • UNICEF spokesperson says averting famine in Gaza hinges on immediate ceasefire, unrestricted aid access
  • Says Gaza is “potentially the most dangerous place in the world” for aid workers and recipients

DUBAI: Is there any hope for the children of Gaza amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, restrictions on aid access, and a looming famine in the north of the enclave?

According to UN Children’s Fund spokesperson James Elder, who recently toured the length of Gaza, only an immediate ceasefire can turn the humanitarian situation around.

Appearing on the Arab News current affairs show “Frankly Speaking” via video link from Rafah, on the Gaza-Egypt border, Elder said that opening multiple entry points and delivering sufficient aid could help save the most vulnerable, including the one in three children under the age of two in the north of Gaza who are suffering from acute malnutrition.




Speaking to “Frankly Speaking” host Katie Jensen from Rafah, James Elder lauded the irreplaceable role played in the humanitarian response by UNRWA and highlighted Israel’s unmet obligations under international law to allow sufficient aid to enter Gaza. (AN photo)

“The ability to scale out, to get aid across an area, is what UNICEF does,” Elder told “Frankly Speaking” host Katie Jensen.

“We have the world’s largest humanitarian supply hub in Denmark. We airlift, we ship, we do everything. We have warehouses here in the region as well. So, multiple warehouses … consistently ready to bring in that aid.”

However, until Israel lifts its restrictions on how much aid is permitted to enter the embattled enclave, enabling UNICEF and other humanitarian agencies to deliver much-needed relief, many fear the extreme food insecurity already endured by Palestinians will escalate into a full-blown famine.

In the wide-ranging interview, Elder described the irreplaceable role played in the humanitarian response by the cash-strapped UN Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, and highlighted Israel’s unmet obligations under international law to allow sufficient aid to enter Gaza.




Speaking to “Frankly Speaking” host Katie Jensen from Rafah, James Elder lauded the irreplaceable role played in the humanitarian response by UNRWA and highlighted Israel’s unmet obligations under international law to allow sufficient aid to enter Gaza. (AN photo)

Elder also spoke about the “annihilation” of Gazan cities and the threats posed to UN workers and aid recipients amid the fighting, which had made the Palestinian territory “potentially the most dangerous place on the planet.”

A UN-backed report released in March warned that unless the hostilities are halted and unrestricted aid is allowed to flow into the Gaza Strip, famine could occur by the end of May. The report said 70 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million-strong population is experiencing catastrophic levels of hunger and food insecurity.

The International Court of Justice at The Hague warned on Thursday that “famine is setting in” as a result of Israel’s continued restrictions on the flow of aid.

In a unanimous ruling, the UN’s highest court ordered Israel to take “all the necessary and effective action” to ensure basic food supplies reach the Palestinian people without delay.

And while saving people in Gaza from starvation is achievable, it will take longer to address “things like disease, the devastation to the health system, to hospitals, to water systems, to sewerage,” said Elder.

Since Israel launched its Gaza operation in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of October 7, the enclave has become a graveyard for at least 13,000 children, according to UN figures.

Acute malnutrition now affects 31 percent of children under the age of two in the northern governorates, while at least 23 children have already died of starvation and dehydration.

Creating these conditions could amount to a war crime, the UN human rights chief, Volker Turk, told the BBC on Thursday, adding that there was a “plausible” case that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.

“International humanitarian law is very clear on proportionalities and on what warring factions can do,” said Elder. “We have seen so many breaches in this war, and for children it seems to make no difference right now. Children don’t understand whether international law is being abided by or not.

“Right now, all they are doing is facing the severity of something that no child ever, ever should have to endure.”

In the initial months of the conflict, the bulk of aid distribution and relief work was carried out by UNRWA, which has supported Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon since 1949.




UN workers prepare humanitarian food aid at a UNRWA warehouse/distribution center in Rafah for distribution to Palestinian refugees amid continuing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The warehouse was partially hit by an Israeli strike on March 13, 2024. (AFP)

However, in January, more than a dozen countries suspended funding for UNRWA after Israel claimed that 12 of the UN agency’s staff had participated in the October 7 attack, while 450 others were “military operatives in terror groups.”

Although an internal investigation and a separate independent investigation have been launched to examine the allegations, the bulk of UNRWA’s funding is still yet to be restored, bringing its operations in Gaza to the brink of collapse.

Elder said UNICEF and other aid agencies are in no position to assume UNRWA’s responsibilities if it goes under.

“UNRWA is the backbone of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip,” he said. “UNRWA has got thousands and thousands of very brave workers, of teachers, of doctors, of pharmacists, of nurses, of you name it.

“UNICEF has deep specialties in child protection and nutrition and so forth, but in terms of that full manpower across the Gaza Strip, the people of Gaza need UNRWA.”

He added: “Fifty percent of food aid getting to those civilians in the north was delivered by UNRWA. That has now been blocked. That’s fast-tracking catastrophe.”




Israeli demonstrators gather by the border fence with Egypt at the Nitzana border crossing in southern Israel on February 18, 2024, as they attempt to block humanitarian aid trucks from entering into Israel on their way to the Gaza Strip. (AFP)

Gaza has become an extremely dangerous place for aid agencies to operate.

“People have been killed receiving aid, aid workers — more aid workers, more of my United Nations colleagues killed in this war than in any time since the advent of the United Nations. This is the reality that people are dealing with,” said Elder.

“Now the UN does work in very dangerous places. That’s what we do. Afghanistan, Sudan, Ukraine, here in Gaza. But we need to be very clear. International humanitarian law is unequivocal. Israel has a legal obligation to facilitate aid, not just getting in, but then to ensure it is safely distributed to those most in need.”

During his journey along the length of the Gaza Strip, Elder was appalled by the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe. While traveling through the Rafah border crossing from Egypt, he saw “hundreds of trucks blocked there with life-saving aid on the wrong side of the border.”

“We are not getting nearly enough aid in,” he added.

Later, during his visit to northern Gaza, he saw “people hanging on to life, children and families who urgently need food.” And yet, “there are crossings there that could be opened, old crossings where you would have aid within 10 or 15 minutes.”

With road access into Gaza limited by Israeli forces, aid agencies have been examining options for a maritime corridor. In mid-March, the Open Arms set sail from Cyprus towing 200 tonnes of flour, protein, and rice bound for Gaza.




The Open Arms, a rescue vessel owned by a Spanish NGO, departs with humanitarian aid for Gaza from Larnaca, Cyprus, on March 30, 2024. (REUTERS)

“Any aid is useful aid, but the ship had the equivalent of around 12 trucks,” said Elder. “There’s 50 times 12 trucks on the other side of the border.”

Another aid access workaround pursued by the US, Jordan and Egypt is airdrops, parachuting aid into Gaza.

However, airdrops are usually used “when people are massively cut off from humanitarian assistance — a flood or a natural disaster,” said Elder. “Here, they’re not cut off. There’s a road network. Road is the efficient, effective way. Roads are what will turn around this humanitarian catastrophe with a ceasefire.”




Jordan, along with the US, German and other European countries had been delivering food aid to Gaza by parachutes, but the scale of starvation in the Israeli-besieged enclave is barely enough, according to humanitarian agencies. (AFP)

Echoing criticism of Israel’s limits on the flow of aid, Elder said: “We need to be very clear. International humanitarian law is unequivocal. Israel has a legal obligation to facilitate aid, not just getting in, but then to ensure it is safely distributed to those most in need.”

On March 25, the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which ends in less than a fortnight.

Elder said the resolution must be “substantive and not symbolic” because a ceasefire “allows the United Nations to flood the Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid and we can turn this imminent famine around.”




A United Nations vehicle drives by as Palestinian girls share a food ration in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 31, 2024. (AFP)

A ceasefire, said Elder, would also allow Israel to bring home its citizens who have been held hostage in Gaza since October 7. “There are children here somewhere underground or whatever horrendous torment they are enduring,” he said. “End the torment, get hostages home.”

He added: “A ceasefire means families — a mother and a child can go to bed with absolute certainty that they will wake up. They haven’t had that for many months.”
In November and December last year, Elder said he visited Al-Nasr Hospital in Khan Younis, where the “incredible” health workers were “doing 24-36-hour shifts in a war zone.”

“They were doing the work that they knew they love to do, and they were born to do as some had said, but they were terrified because their families were outside.”




Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on March 29, 2024. (REUTERS)

Returning to Khan Younis in recent days, Elder said: “I went through it now and it’s just annihilated, street after street, rubble everywhere. I have not seen that level of devastation, which in my mind segued to here, to Rafah, and why we cannot see that happen here.”

Now, it is as though Khan Younis and Gaza City no longer exist. “Just cracked rubble and steel as far as you can see and stunned looking people, because home after home has been destroyed,” he said.

Rafah, meanwhile, “is a city of tents. It’s a city of children. This is where families were meant to go to stay safe. And there’s a desperation here, but there is a solidarity. People do what they can for each other.”

He added: “I’ve been across the Gaza Strip. In the north is a level of suffering that I can’t say defies words, but it is getting to a point where, well, we’re seeing children die of malnutrition, of dehydration.”




A mourner carries the body of a Palestinian child killed in an Israeli strike in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on March 29, 2024. (REUTERS)

“You see parents in tears over a child’s cot, a child who is paper thin. This is a mother who’s done everything she can to protect her child from these relentless … bombardments. And now she’s trying to protect her child from starvation.

“These mothers and fathers are learning that the real decisions about the safety of their children are being made by people elsewhere. So, there is a level of stress and anxiety across the Gaza Strip.”

Elder said the situation in Gaza “speaks to the mental trauma here of more than a million children.

“As a child psychologist said to me, we are in uncharted territory here when it comes to the mental health of girls and boys in Gaza.”
 

 


Trump: Important that Middle Eastern countries join Abraham Accords

Updated 07 August 2025
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Trump: Important that Middle Eastern countries join Abraham Accords

  • Efforts to expand the accords have been complicated by a soaring death toll and starvation in Gaza
  • The war in Gaza has provoked global anger

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Thursday it was important that Middle Eastern countries join the Abraham Accords, which aim to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, saying it will ensure peace in the region.

“Now that the nuclear arsenal being ‘created’ by Iran has been totally OBLITERATED, it is very important to me that all Middle Eastern Countries join the Abraham Accords,” Trump wrote in a social media post.

As part of the Abraham Accords, signed during Trump’s first term in office, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.

Efforts to expand the accords have been complicated by a soaring death toll and starvation in Gaza.

The war in Gaza, where local authorities say more than 60,000 people have died, has provoked global anger. Canada, France and the United Kingdom have announced plans in recent days to recognize an independent Palestinian state.

Trump’s administration is actively discussing with Azerbaijan the possibility of bringing that nation and some Central Asian allies into the Abraham Accords, hoping to deepen their existing ties with Israel, according to five sources with knowledge of the matter.


Greece may extend North Africa asylum ban if migrant flow resurges

Updated 07 August 2025
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Greece may extend North Africa asylum ban if migrant flow resurges

  • In July, the government stopped processing asylum requests from migrants arriving from North Africa by sea for three months in an effort to curb arrivals from Libya to Crete
  • Plevris said he could not rule out an extension to the suspension if there was a “new crisis“

ATHENS: Greece could extend a suspension on examining asylum applications passed by parliament last month if migrant flows from Libya start rising again, Migration Minister Thanos Plevris said on Thursday.

In July, the center-right government stopped processing asylum requests from migrants arriving from North Africa by sea for at least three months in an effort to curb arrivals from Libya to the Greek island of Crete.

In an interview with public broadcaster ERT, Plevris said he could not rule out an extension to the suspension if there was a “new crisis.”

Arrivals of irregular migrants in Crete declined rapidly after the new legislation took effect from 2,642 in the first week of July to 900 in the whole period since then.

New legislation is being prepared that will clearly define that “whoever comes into the country illegally will face a jail term of up to five years,” Plevris said, referring to those who are not fleeing armed conflict, who could qualify for asylum.

Human rights groups accuse Greece of turning back asylum-seekers by force on its sea and land borders. This year, the European Union border agency said it was reviewing 12 cases of potential human rights violations by Greece.

The government denies wrongdoing.

“All European countries now understand that it is not possible to have open borders, it’s not possible to welcome illegal migrants with flowers,” Plevris said.

“There should be a clear message that countries have borders, (that) Europe has exceeded its capabilities and will not accept any more illegal migrants.”

Greece has sent two frigates to patrol off Libya and has started training Libyan coast guard officers on Crete as part of a plan to strengthen cooperation and help the two countries stem migrant arrivals.

Greece was on the European front line of a migration crisis in 2015-16 when hundreds of thousands from the Middle East, Asia and Africa passed through its islands and mainland.

Since then, flows have dropped off dramatically. While there has been a rise in arrivals to the outlying islands of Crete and Gavdos, sea arrivals to Greece as a whole dropped by 5.5 percent to 17,000 in the first half of this year, UN data show.


Lebanon cabinet to meet again on Hezbollah disarmament

Updated 36 min 11 sec ago
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Lebanon cabinet to meet again on Hezbollah disarmament

  • Amid fears Israel could expand its strikes in Lebanon, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam tasked the army with developing a plan to restrict weapons to government forces by the end of 2025

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s cabinet is set to meet again on Thursday to discuss the thorny task of disarming Hezbollah, a day after the Iran-backed group rejected the government’s decision to take away its weapons.

With Washington pressing Lebanon to take action on the matter, US envoy Tom Barrack has made several visits to Beirut in recent weeks, presenting officials with a proposal that includes a timetable for Hezbollah’s disarmament.

Amid the US pressure and fears Israel could expand its strikes in Lebanon, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Tuesday that the government had tasked the army with developing a plan to restrict weapons to government forces by the end of 2025.

The decision is unprecedented since the end of Lebanon’s civil war more than three decades ago, when the country’s armed factions — with the exception of Hezbollah — agreed to surrender their weapons.

The government said the new disarmament push was part of implementing a November ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.

That conflict culminated last year in two months of full-blown war that left the group badly weakened, both politically and militarily.

Hezbollah said on Wednesday that it would treat the government’s decision to disarm it “as if it did not exist,” accusing the cabinet of committing a “grave sin.”

It added that the move “undermines Lebanon’s sovereignty and gives Israel a free hand to tamper with its security, geography, politics and future existence.”

The Amal movement, Hezbollah’s main ally headed by parliament speaker Nabih Berri, also criticized the move and called Thursday’s cabinet meeting “an opportunity for correction.”

Iran, Hezbollah’s military and financial backer, said on Wednesday that any decision on disarmament “will ultimately rest with Hezbollah itself.”

“We support it from afar, but we do not intervene in its decisions,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi added, saying the group had “rebuilt itself” after the war with Israel.

Two ministers affiliated with Hezbollah and the Amal movement walked out of Tuesday’s meeting on disarmament in protest.

Hezbollah described the walkout as a rejection of the government’s “decision to subject Lebanon to American tutelage and Israeli occupation.”

Citing “political sources” with knowledge of the matter, pro-Hezbollah newspaper Al Akhbar said the group and its Amal allies could choose to withdraw their four ministers from the government or trigger a no-confidence vote in parliament by the Shiite bloc, which comprises 27 of Lebanon’s 128 lawmakers.

Israel — which routinely carries out air strikes in Lebanon despite the ceasefire, saying it is targeting Hezbollah fighters and infrastructure — has already signalled it would not hesitate to launch destructive military operations if Beirut failed to disarm the group.

Israeli strikes in south Lebanon killed two people on Wednesday, according to the Lebanese health ministry.


UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed arrives in Moscow 

Updated 07 August 2025
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UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed arrives in Moscow 

  • Sheikh Mohamed is accompanied by a high-level delegation

DUBAI: UAE President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan arrived in Moscow on Thursday for an official visit to the Russian Federation.

As the President's plane entered Russian airspace, it was greeted and escorted by Russian military jets.

An official reception was held at Vnukovo Airport, where the national anthems of the UAE and Russia were played. An honor guard was present as Sheikh Mohamed was greeted by senior Russian officials.

Sheikh Mohamed is accompanied by a high-level delegation that includes a number of senior UAE officials.


Sudan’s PM in Egypt on first foreign visit

Updated 07 August 2025
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Sudan’s PM in Egypt on first foreign visit

  • Sudan’s Prime Minister Kamil Idris arrived in Cairo on Thursday morning for his first official foreign visit since assuming office in May, as his country’s army remains gripped by a brutal war

CAIRO: Sudan’s Prime Minister Kamil Idris arrived in Cairo on Thursday morning for his first official foreign visit since assuming office in May, as his country’s army remains gripped by a brutal war with paramilitaries.
Idris, a career diplomat and former UN official, is expected to hold talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, according to Sudan’s state news agency SUNA.
He will also hold expanded talks with his Egyptian counterpart Mostafa Madbouly and “discuss ways of enhancing bilateral cooperation in various fields,” according to a statement from Egypt’s cabinet.
Egypt has backed Sudan’s military leadership since war erupted in April 2023, when a fragile alliance between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) collapsed.
The RSF swiftly seized large parts of Khartoum, but after months of urban warfare, the army recaptured the capital in March this year.
Fighting has since shifted to other parts of the country — most notably the western regions of Darfur and Kordofan.
The conflict in Sudan has killed tens of thousands, displaced over 14 million and created what the United Nations describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crises.
Sudan is now effectively split, with the army in control of the north, east and center, while the RSF dominates nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south.
The RSF has been working to establish a rival administration in western Sudan — a move the United Nations warned could deepen divisions in the already fractured country.
Critics meanwhile say the new civilian-led government under Idris risks serving as a facade for continued military rule.