ANDREW LIMBONG, HOST:
Will peace finally come? It's an urgent question for many in Gaza and Israel as delegations from both sides in the two-year war prepare to meet in Egypt on Monday. Over the weekend, there's been significant progress on the proposal drafted by the Trump administration, and there's a careful sense of optimism that this could be it.
JAMES ELDER: They hope to be able to go home. They hope to be able to leave a tent or be able to leave a street and start rebuilding their lives.
LIMBONG: That's James Elder, a spokesperson for UNICEF, who is currently in Gaza. He also reminded us the fighting hasn't stopped.
ELDER: You know, I was in a hospital on Saturday. And there I am again in ICU, looking at a little 10-year-old girl, Seva (ph), who has got horrific wounds to her face from shrapnel because she was getting water when there was an airstrike as she was, you know, queuing to get water.
LIMBONG: Despite constant pressure from UNICEF and other humanitarian organizations to expand access to aid, last August, a report from a U.N.-backed panel from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, declared that famine had reached Gaza. I asked James Elder if that declaration had any meaningful difference on the flow of aid.
ELDER: No, that didn't come. That never came. And it wasn't just the food. It's the medicine. You hear a child having had an amputation, you hear those screams because painkillers have not been allowed in. Incubators - you know, I just was at a hospital two days ago, Andrew, and you know, you're talking about three premature babies on a bed sharing oxygen. I'm seeing mums and brand-new babies, newborns in hospital corridors in what were world-class hospitals because there's a lack of incubators. Now, what possible reason is there to deny incubators. So no, a meaningful level of humanitarian aid has never flowed, particularly after the famine declaration.
LIMBONG: You know, several aid organizations have said that the crisis of starvation could be resolved quickly - right? - that it's not logistical issues or a lack of capacity. It's all about access. What do you need to happen to be able to serve the children and families you're trying to reach?
ELDER: Yeah, it is about access, exactly. It's not a logistical problem. A logistical problem is where you're hundreds and hundreds of miles away from the support you need. Here it's 5 miles. There is a border, you know, and on the other side is a thousand trucks. So what we need is the Israeli officials to, A, let humanitarian aid flow. And then once it gets into Gaza - it's not just getting into Gaza - legally, they have a responsibility to facilitate that. What that means is opening up multiple routes, not denying aid for two months and then giving us one route to go down and then creating the systems for aid to be looted and then blaming aid workers for that. So again, yes. These are not logistical problems. These are political decisions made, and there's lives at the end of every one of these.
LIMBONG: Israel has rejected the claim that it's responsible for conditions of famine and starvation seen in Gaza. Prime Minister Netanyahu's office called the IPC report an outright lie, and he also shifted the blame back on Hamas. Here's what the prime minister said at the U.N. General Assembly last month.
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PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: If there are Gazans who don't have enough food, it's because Hamas is stealing it. Hamas steals it, hoards it and sells it at exorbitant prices to fight its war machine.
LIMBONG: You've been on the ground. Who bears responsibility for the fact that critical food supplies are not reaching people?
ELDER: Oh, Israel. They - I'm sorry. There's two parts to this. One is that, you know, senior American officials, starting under the Biden administration going all the way through today, have made it very clear that at no point were they given evidence of systematic, meaningful aid diversion. And so we face statements time and again - without evidence - designed to discredit tried and tested aid systems to justify, you know, controlling and weaponizing aid and displacing a population. So this is not suppositions. The evidence is very, very clear on the ground in terms of where those denials have come from.
LIMBONG: Will the political developments between the U.S., Israel and Hamas this weekend make an immediate difference for the people you and your partners are seeing every day?
ELDER: Oh, there is no doubt. This is so quick. If the bombs fall silent and humanitarian aid flows, absolutely. And there's a couple of reasons for that. One is, of course, because that would be the first time in a long time that parents can promise their children at nighttime in a tent that they will go to bed and wake up next day.
And the other is - and it's not a cliche - there is an ability of Palestinians to bounce back. And that's based on something concrete. That's based on a foundation of education. This is one of the highest literacy rates in the region. It's based on engineers and doctors and computer scientists and nurses and mums and dads. So there is an education system here that's been the backbone and the pride and joy of Palestinians. As long as Palestinians are given a chance now, and, of course, given the support that they will need, yeah, hope is even stronger right now because it is literally all they've got.
LIMBONG: That is UNICEF's James Elder speaking with us from Gaza. James, thank you so much for the time.
ELDER: Pleasure, Andrew. Pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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