Source: United Nations (video statements)
Press Conference by Ted Chaiban, Deputy Executive Director for Humanitarian Action and Supply Operations of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), on his recent travel to the Middle East.
UNICEF senior official Ted Chaiban said, “One in three people in Gaza are going days without food,” warning that “we are at a crossroads. The choices made now will determine whether tens of thousands of children live or die.”
Ted Chaiban is the Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF’s Humanitarian Action and Supply Operations. He briefed reporters today (01 Aug) in New York after returning from a five-day mission to Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Chaiban highlighted, “Gaza now faces a grave risk of famine,” adding that “more than 320,000 young children are at risk of acute malnutrition.”
The UNICEF humanitarian also said that there has been some easing of humanitarian access after the pauses announced by Israel, adding that the Agency has over 1,500 trucks of life-saving supplies ready across corridors in Egypt, Jordan, Ashdod, and Turkey.
“Some have begun to move, and we have delivered in the last couple of days 33 trucks of life-saving infant formula, High Energy Biscuits and hygiene kits,” he explained.
This is still a fraction of what is needed, Chaiban said, explaining that a big part of his mission has been advocacy and engagement with the Israeli authorities in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
He said, “We pressed for a review of their military rules of engagement to protect civilians and children. Children should not be getting killed waiting in line at a nutrition centre or collecting water, and people should not be so desperate as to have to rush a convoy for food. We called for more humanitarian aid and commercial traffic to come in – moving closer towards 500 trucks a day – to stabilize the situation and reduce the desperation of the population and also the looting and, what we call it self-distribution, when the population goes after a convoy, and also looting, when armed groups go after it because the price of food is so high.”
On getting the aid to the people, Chaiban said, “We know what must be done and what can be done. The UN and NGOs that form the humanitarian community can address this, along with commercial traffic, if the measures are in place to allow access and eventually have enough goods in the Strip that some of the issues that are there with law and order abate.”
Asked about airdropping aid, the UNICEF official said, “Airdrops cannot replace the volume and the scale that convoys by road can achieve.”
He continued, “what’s needed is simply not feasible in terms of volume, in terms of access through airdrops. And so try every modality, but what’s clearly needed is to move back towards a volume of around 500 trucks a day, through all routes and that includes both humanitarian aid and commercial as I have said.”
Chaiban also said that for children who have access to ready to use therapeutic food, whose mother also has access to specialized foods, they can physically recover relatively quickly with sustained food, however, the emotional well-being, the risk of stunting the mental health of the child will “get worse and worse the longer the child is in the situation that it’s in.”