Ciaran Jenkins is joined by Sam Rose, director of planning at UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for supporting Palestinians. He’s recently returned from Rafah. Ciaran asked him what he knew about women and children reportedly being killed in that Israeli strike on the UN-run school in central Gaza.The school was sheltering 6,000 people. Given the population of Gaza, the majority of those people will have been women and children.
What is the effect of that?The border crossing at Rafah remains closed. We are now able to get some supplies in through Kerem Shalom. So some movement of aid has resumed. But we were failing collectively before the military operation in Rafah started. The collective efforts of the international community were not preventing people from reaching famine-like conditions in Gaza back in April. Since then, we’ve only seen a reduction in supplies getting in.