Politics: What Changing Political Tides Mean For Gaza

0:28This message comes from Schwab. of the tiny enclave that's home to more than 2 million people. In March, Israel expanded their buffer zone, or yellow line, in Gaza by 10 percent. The expanded buffer zone, or orange line, was highlighted in maps sent to aid groups. More than 1 ,100 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas nearly a year ago. 73 ,000 Palestinians have been killed in total since Israel's military offensive began after Hamas fighters killed 1 ,200 people on October 7, 2023. Meanwhile, dozens of aid groups have been barred from operating in Gaza, and on Sunday, a UN official accused Hamas of obstructing the distribution of aid in Gaza.

1:14While fighting on the ground there has slowed since last October's ceasefire, Israeli airstrikes have continued, killing more than 1 ,000. That's according to Gaza's health ministry. Israel says it's targeting Hamas militants. The Israeli government says an end to fighting is dependent on Hamas's disarmament. Nearly all of Gaza's population of more than 2 million faces hunger, with 77 % of the population facing high levels of food insecurity. That's according to the World Food Program. So what do these shifting lines of control mean for Gazans in need, especially as vital services and health systems remain in disrepair?

1:50And how could changing political tides affect Gaza? I'm Naila Boodoo, in for Jen White, and you're listening to the 1A Podcast. We get into those questions and more right after this. Stay with us.

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2:46You can fill your reusable tote bag with a bit of everything. Maybe you go for some free-range self-directed investing, or pick up a few farm-fresh trades while you peruse. You can even get help from a dedicated advisor. That's full-service wealth management. No matter your goals or appetite for investing, Schwab has everything you need all in one place to invest your way. Visit schwab.com to learn more. Let's jump into the latest in Gaza with Nadal al-Mugrabi. He's a senior correspondent at Reuters covering Gaza. He's covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for nearly 30 years, and he joins us from Cairo.

3:23Nadal, welcome. Hi, thank you. Also with us from Amman, Jordan, is Louise Wateridge. She's a spokesperson at UNICEF. Louise, welcome to 1A. Thanks for having me. Louise, you're talking to us from Jordan. What have UNICEF's operations been like in Gaza? what challenges have you had entering the enclave? I mean, the challenges are really consistent. They've been the same that they have been for over a thousand days since this has been going on. It's getting supplies in, getting personnel in. I mean, you yourselves know journalists, international media are still having restrictions. So access is really continuing to be a continued struggle for us.

4:03And when I talk about that, I mean, you know, critical supplies like fuel and pesticides, medicine, spare parts for desentilation plants. A lot of the infrastructure is completely destroyed now. So if you're thinking in Gaza, you're not just turning on a tap to get water. The infrastructure is not there. It's just a whole population relying on trucking. Basically, over 2 million people, for which half is children, so a million children in the Gaza Strip. That is one of the biggest struggles that we continue to have, to get what people need into the Gaza Strip. Nadal, we mentioned Israel's expanding zone of control in Gaza.

4:47What does this new orange line mean for people there? You know, Israel has expanded, you know, like, its control of the Gaza Strip areas. So, you know, it has controlled since October ceasefire. First, It stood at 53%, and then there was an expansion, and then other expansions. What Palestinian people say when we talk to them is that they sleep at night while their homes are in the areas under Palestinian control, where Hamas is in control. And when they wake up in the morning, they find out that there are yellow bricks about 50 meters or 60 meters from their homes, which means that the line itself, the yellow line has expanded and that they will have to back up and go.

5:41So they have to leave their house and leave their areas. People are not aware of the definitions or where the yellow line begins or where the orange line begins. They are living in continued displacement. The orange line where there are no tanks, this is how it is defined by people. There are no tanks where there is the orange line, but all humanitarian aid organizations, if they need to be there or to send trucks or assistance to people who are trapped in these areas, they will have to have a coordination with the Israeli government in order to send water trucks or any other kind of shipments.

6:34Netanyahu himself said he ordered the army to take up the control of 70 % of Gaza. What that means is that the remaining about 2 million people have to squeeze in 30 % or less space, which means crowdedness. And Nadal, you said, can you go back to how are these lines being communicated to the people and to the public there? How do people know that the line is shifting? They know when they woke up in the morning and they find out that there are yellow pricks closer to their homes. That is preceded by a night of firing from the Israeli tanks nearby. That's according to several testimonies from the residents.

7:31First, it's a night of horror where there are tanks roaring near the residents, firing from the machine guns of the tanks, and sometimes some shilling in areas probably vacant in order to scare off the people. In the morning, people wake up and they look around and they see that there are yellow pricks about dozens of yards or 50 yards close to their homes, which is closer than where they stood yesterday or the day before. It means that they are now in imminent danger. And that forces many families in different locations in northern Gaza or in the south, across Gaza, to leave their houses, going westward towards the western areas of the Gaza Strip, whether in Gaza City or in the south.

8:33So that's how they see it. It's not that they are notified by a text passage or there is an announcement that tomorrow the army is progressing or is moving forward. No, this is how they find out that the army has expanded the yellow line area. Louise, how is UNICEF dealing with these shifting lines? What does it mean for aid groups? well it's a really good point that i'd like to build on i mean firstly it's getting the supplies into the gaza strip that's that's one of the challenges we have and the limitations on supplies we're allowed to bring in but once my colleagues have these supplies into gaza it's then moving them around it's getting them to the people that need them most and that's our second challenge with access i mean i myself have sat in convoys in gaza for 16 12 hours in a day and not been provided the access that we needed and had to turn around and not deliver the medical supplies or whatever supplies we had to get that day to people.

9:35And this is a daily challenge, just access within the Gaza Strip, trying to reach communities, trying to move around. As you said, the population, over 2 million people, is now crammed into under 40 % of the Gaza Strip. And we're trying to reach everybody, but we have all of our movements coordinated with Israeli authorities, and we cannot go anywhere unless that coordination is given. So these challenges persist. You know, our colleagues, they're exhausted. They're frustrated. It is exhausting to try and do this day in and day out. But that's what we've been doing now for over a thousand days, and we continue to do everything we can.

10:14Can I just ask you, you were talking about Gaza's infrastructure, and I wanted to focus in on Gaza's health system. Israeli bombing has destroyed 38 hospitals and 96 primary health care centers since October 7, 2023. More than 73 ,000 Palestinians have been killed in total, as we mentioned, since Israel's bombardment of Gaza began. How are medical services being provided right now? Louise. Well, as you say, there's not a single hospital that remains functioning for fully operational in Gaza. And yet we're talking about a population of children that have got severe injuries. Their immune system has been compromised for over two and a half years.

10:55Children with life-threatening conditions, they can't seek this medical treatment. So they have to try and get evacuated outside of Gaza. But the medical supplies inside, I mean, it's not enough. We've got staff who are really just working with what they can. And I mentioned fuel earlier. Fuel is one of these critical things when it comes to a medical response because it's the generators it's the generators and health centers and the hospitals and without those machines turn off and without those you haven't got air conditioning in in ICU units so then you've got flies coming in you've got infections spreading fuel has been so critical to this medical medical response we've got doctors and nurses who are going to work every day you know they leave their children behind to go to work to serve their communities.

11:41And then they get there and they don't have the supplies they need. They don't have the medical supplies that they need. They don't have the treatments for children. The skin conditions are spreading. We've got respiratory infections. More than half of households now are reporting skin diseases. And in the last two weeks, we've had over 9 ,000 chickenpox cases. It's completely predictable. And we're stuck in this cycle where unless the medical supplies are going to get in and also the conditions that are causing these diseases to spread change. We're just going to be stuck in this cycle where this will continue every year.

12:17Nadal, Louise was talking about health workers. More than 1 ,500 health workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023. In addition to the danger of their lives, can you share a little bit more about what health workers are facing in Gaza? It's actually something that you can say common and collective in Gaza, not only faced by doctors, it's faced by most of the population as well as journalists and most of the actors who work inside Gaza. It's the lack of safety. There is no place that is safe. When we were still in Gaza operating and covering stories and we used to go to hospitals every day, we had to choose the routes.

13:05what routes we can use in order to get to the hospital or in order to get to a place where, you know, like we have some, you know, like an incident, you know, like going there without exposing ourselves to danger. And that's what happens with people, especially with doctors. You know, some doctors even, you know, like they cannot treat, you know, the problem is that, you know, he speaks to the doctor and he said, we do a surgery, an emergency surgery, but after that, there is not some sort of the follow-up for the patient, which then exposed the wound or the amputation, you know, like operational surgery to further inflammation.

13:56And that inflammation, in some cases, lead to further amputation. you know like that kind of of of a stuff that you know like no no place for specialized surgeries anymore there is no place for constructive in like a surgery so it's only we're hearing from the doctors that we have reached a stage where it is not only sufficient to treat people for example you know people coming with diarrhea people coming with like infections and other skin diseases. They are treated in the hospital. They have received their medication, but after that, where would they go? They will go to the crowded tent encampments where the situation is miserable and their situation, the health situation only gets worse when they leave the hospital.

14:53People with respiratory problems and they need a constant source of power in order to operate like oxygen, like pumps or other devices that allow them to breathe easily at night. Some people with I know, and we have interviewed them with sleep apnea, they can only feel comfortable once they have 24 hours operational source of power. So the helplessness feeling is what is overwhelming among doctors in Gaza. They are overwhelmed by the cases of patients, the numbers of wounded, and we know that in Gaza. And it sounds, Nidal, I'm sure also it's just only going to get worse. I wanted to ask you about summer, right?

15:50We know that Gazans are faring. You mentioned the tents, summer heat and tents that are reportedly even hotter than the outside temps in the 80s. The sea, which could provide relief, is heavily polluted. Here's Gada Habush in Gaza City earlier this summer.

16:09She's saying there, my grandchildren have been begging me to bring them to the sea. I didn't agree. I'm scared of the patrol boats and shelling. This place gets targeted. Louise, how are people handling heat when you compound that with water shortages? What needs exist right now when it comes to clean drinking water? I mean, yeah, there's this heat and there's water, sure. But one of the points she's saying, I mean, this is part of the so-called ceasefire. This is since October and now it's July. And on average, a child has been killed every single day. That's the fear. That's what people say to us.

16:48You know, yesterday, just yesterday, a husband and his wife and their six-year-old were reported killed. And a three-year-old son survived, the sole survivor. This is every single day. The fear is still there in life, if you can call it that, in the existence. So, yeah, we can talk about heat. We can talk about water. But there's still this fear of survival, you know, to go to the beach, to go to the sea and just for the children to have a swim and cool off. No one wants to do it because of the fear of what will happen on the way there, on the way back when you're there. You know, it's this constant fear and anxiety of being under attack.

17:34And, you know, we're talking about children, a child killed every single day since October in this so-called ceasefire. It's not stopping. And then on top of that is the misery. You know, we've got people coming into the clinics, the families coming to the clinics. My child can't sleep. There's scorpions, there's snakes. They're getting bitten by rats in the night because everybody is sheltered on top of each other. You know, they're not even tents, really. They're makeshift shelters on the beach next to each other. You've got huge families sharing small spaces. Nowhere to go. Trash piling up.

18:07Middle of summer. Of course, no air conditioning. No taps to turn on. No running water to drink. A dire situation that Louise Wateridge, spokesperson at UNICEF, is describing. Louise, we appreciate you taking the time to join us. More on Gaza's humanitarian crisis, including the long-term effects, right after this.

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19:07This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Planet Money Summer School, we go to China, one of the world's biggest economies. And what we learned is... Americans are crazy. Chinese are crazy. These are two countries full of these crazy hustlers. The U.S. and China are more alike than you might think. On Planet Money Summer School, a strange lesson about success. How to handle the downsides of progress. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's add another voice to our conversation on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Jeremy Keneindyke is president of Refugees International.

19:42That's an independent nonprofit advocating for refugees globally, and he joins us now in studio. Jeremy, welcome to 1A. Thanks so much. Jeremy, 90 % of Gaza's more than 2 million person population has been displaced as a result of the war. How would you describe the refugee crisis in Gaza? So, as you say, almost everyone has been displaced. But I think it's important to contextualize that. That's not just they got displaced once and they stayed put and now they can build. It has been a process of ongoing, almost permanent displacement and redisplacement throughout the war. And so there has been, before the ceasefire, when there was the more active conflict, although as Louise pointed out earlier, conflict is still ongoing.

20:24People would be displaced every few weeks, every few months. The Israeli government would blanket people's phones and drop leaflets. Sometimes they would do it without warning and just push into an area, tell everyone to leave. They would designate an area as safe, and then a few weeks later they would bomb that area. And so people have moved over and over and over. Many of them have nothing left. If people who are able to live in the remnants of a bombed out apartment that at least has walls are some of the lucky ones. Many are in tents. One of the public health problems that has emerged and been a major problem since the ceasefire is rat bites.

21:03Because people are living, there is so little sanitation, the rat population has exploded and people are living unprotected in tents. So children are being bitten by rats regularly. And are displaced Gazans ending up primarily then in different tent cities? They are primarily in this small territory of about 30 percent of Gaza. And I mean, important to remember, Gaza was already one of the most densely populated areas on Earth even before the war. It is not a big place. And, yeah, they are intense. They are in, you know, temporary accommodations. Very few of them have anything resembling durable shelter right now.

21:40Nadelle, you've actually been reporting recently about the widespread issues of rodents and pests. What else did you find out about the rat infestation that Jeremy was just talking about? Yeah, that's one of the new issues in the past months in Gaza and made people sleepless. It's ironically, sometimes people make cynical comments about the existence of the rats. and some of them even do videos on TikTok filming rats sharing their cup of coffee or their food while they just stand helpless to come to anything for them because whatever they do these rats are very big, not the usual rats. They are very big and they keep chewing into the luggages, the tents And most recently, people have started to complain from the presence of snakes, especially in areas where there are piles of garbage, you know, like because there is no space to take the garbage to.

22:56UNDP has started a project recently to clear the garbage from densely populated areas, but it is limited what you can do and where you can send those because the garbage dumps or the landfills usually are located in the eastern side of Gaza, which is now under Israeli army control. So there's no way to push them there. Yeah. On that point, we got a question from Aaron who emailed us and said, Gaza shares a border with Egypt as well as Israel. Why is the entire supply system reliant on Israel, which is continually attacked? Do the people of Gaza think Hamas should lay down arms and give up governance of Gaza?

23:44Okay. First of all, the October ceasefire left Israel in control of 53 % of the Gaza Strip, including the whole city of Rafah, which borders Egypt and which houses the Rafah Crossing, which is the main getaway or window of most of the Palestinians to the outside world. the Rafah crossing. And that is under Israeli control. So whatever comes into Gaza, whether people or goods, is decided by Israel. Israel has the right to veto entry of passengers into Gaza, as well as goods. When goods land, whether in Kerem Shalom and in the crossing, which is controlled by Israel, or in the beginning of the war, like at Rafah, which is, you know, like considered to be Palestinian-Egyptian, you know, crossing, also Israel decides, you know, what goes in.

24:49And whatever comes into Gaza has to go through a complicated process of inspection because Israel says it fears that, you know, Hamas and other militants will exploit the entry of aid and other goods into Gaza to smuggle, like fighting, like tools or fighting, you know, like, you know, like tactics. So that's so this is how, you know, like how it's going. Also, the failure to reach a broad agreement to end the conflict makes the struggle, you know, continuous. And we witness like daily attacks by Israel and, you know, rising number of Palestinian fatalities like every day. Yeah, so we were, right, Nadal, as we were hearing Louise talking about that.

25:39Can I ask just about, Jeremy, you previously served under the Biden administration with the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was dismantled last year. What work was USAID doing in Gaza? What U.S. assistance? We have an email from Stacey asking, how much assistance is the U.S. providing to Gaza now? Is it going to legitimate humanitarian organizations? So under the Biden administration, the U.S. was providing a lot of assistance to Gaza, or at least a lot of assistance to organizations trying to get that into Gaza, often blocked by the Israeli government. And the Biden administration didn't do nearly enough to override that obstruction by the Israeli government.

26:23Some of that has continued under the Trump administration. Some of the UN organizations and a handful of the NGOs are still getting direct U.S. funding. But the U.S. has also thrown money at some really, really damaging and counterproductive things, notably last year, something called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Is that still operating? No, it collapsed and for very good reasons. This was a sort of militarized AIDS startup that was created seemingly by – with the backing of the Israeli government kind of behind the scenes by some American investors and out of nowhere was handed $30 million by the U.S.

27:03State Department. They waived like 11 different rules and procedures to give them that money because they couldn't otherwise legally do it. And it was a disaster and it killed hundreds upon hundreds of Palestinians because basically it forced Palestinian aid seekers to go through this gauntlet of Israeli military tanks and soldiers in order to access the aid. One aid group that I talked to said that their clinics considered every distribution of the GHF to be a likely mass casualty event because every time people would get shot and they would have people coming into their clinic. So it's been a mess.

27:39What's happening now in terms of what the U.S. government is doing in terms of – to Stacey's point, is U.S. assistance going to legitimate humanitarian organizations now? It is still going to some legitimate humanitarian organizations, but the available funding is really dropping off. So World Central Kitchen, for example, which had been one of the largest providers of daily meals in Gaza, recently announced that due to funding shortfalls, they were having to dramatically scale back to, I think, only three different kitchen distribution sites across all of Gaza. So that's a major blow, and there is a lot less – there's just not much aid getting in right now.

28:18Under the ceasefire deal, there was a promise of 600 aid trucks per day. In June, that was about 60, so one-tenth of the level promised. Jeremy, more than 780 ,000 people have died as a result of USAID funding cuts globally. That's according to one online estimate. How are you reflecting on the last year without USAID? I wrote a piece in the New York Times earlier this year on the one-year anniversary that argued that this is how America shows up in a lot of the world. The values that we try to project as a country, are we a country that tries to dominate or a country that tries to partner and collaborate?

28:59Are we a country that is out there only for ourselves or are we a country that is trying to lift up others? When JFK created USAID back in the early 60s, he was very explicit that we, as the most powerful and the richest country in the world, have an obligation to also lift up others, and that by doing so, we ultimately also help ourselves. And I think that is a really fundamental insight. It's a deeply American insight, and it has been completely lost over the past year. Nadal, I wanted to ask you about the realities of covering Gaza as a journalist. You haven't been in Gaza for two years, but you reported from the front lines at the start of the war.