00:00Jonathan Cricks is Chief of Communication at UNICEF, State of Palestine.
00:04Jonathan, welcome. We've been looking at maps.
00:07Let's talk about people. What's the situation like on the ground in Gaza, where you are?
00:13Well, the situation in the Gaza Strip remains absolutely dramatic.
00:18Yes, the ceasefire has brought additional humanitarian aid inside the Gaza Strip,
00:25but the children that I'm seeing are still barefoot living in makeshift tents
00:31and with a piece of plastic tarp on a wooden frame,
00:35and that's where most of the families who are surrounding the place where I'm talking to you are living in.
00:41The temperature is dropping. It's night.
00:44Very often in the past weeks, it's been raining.
00:47Those makeshift tents have been completely flooded.
00:50They are not equipped with toilets.
00:52There is not enough access to proper water, proper hygiene conditions.
00:58So all this is making the life of the children here in the Gaza Strip absolutely dramatic.
01:06But once again, the ceasefire has brought a respite for the children.
01:11There has been less bombardment, yet we have witnessed still strikes in the past weeks, including last weekend.
01:19But the overall situation is really dire.
01:25And the reason is very simple is because the scale of the destruction is so immense
01:30that, you know, we have more than 1.5 million people who have been displayed several times,
01:37moving very often with only what they have on the back and living now in makeshift tents or in shelters.
01:43So the situation remains dramatic.
01:44So 50 people will be allowed to leave the enclave each day.
01:48Another 50 will be allowed to return.
01:51I mean, just how important is it for people to be able to move back and forth across the rapid crossing?
01:59Well, it's extremely important.
02:01I'm just going to take a few examples of children that I met myself in the past weeks.
02:06I mean, I met with a little girl, she's five-year-old, her name is Reem.
02:13I met with her in Khan Yuni's displaced camps.
02:16And, you know, she looks completely like any child, but she has a huge scar on her belly.
02:22And she still has shrapnel in her belly that, you know, requires a very, I would say, advanced type of surgery.
02:32And she has already been undergoing three operations, surgical operations.
02:38And there are still bits and pieces of shrapnel which are not, which were not removed.
02:44So the case of Reem is one of the three or four thousand cases of children who are in need of medical evacuation.
02:53So either because they have been a victim of the war or because, you know, they have cancer, leukemia, they need a heart transplant, all things that cannot be treated inside the Gaza Strip.
03:07So for that reason, also for family reunification purposes, it's very important that the Rafa crossing point opens.
03:15It's an important step, an important development, but that needs to, and we really hope and advocate for an extension so that more people, more children can exit and enter the Gaza Strip.
03:32We think perhaps 20,000 people need medical evacuation.
03:37Realistically, how long is that going to take?
03:41Well, I mean, it depends on the pace.
03:44If the pace stays like this, I'm not that good at math, but I can tell you it's going to take a long time.
03:51And this is why it's absolutely very, very important that these figures are increasing.
03:59And if I may go a little bit beyond the topic of the day, which is the Rafa crossing point,
04:06what is really important is to have the health system in Gaza, which needs to be rehabilitated.
04:12We need to have, for the moment, there is only half of the hospitals, which are only partially functioning.
04:19The rest is not working at all or destroyed.
04:21So we need to rebuild the hospitals.
04:24We need to be able to treat children here inside Gaza, because that is the preferred solution.
04:31The preferred solution is not to have the children who have to exit an area to get the medical treatment they are entitled to have.
04:40Jonathan, good to see you.
04:42Thank you very much indeed for coming on the program.
04:44Jonathan Cricks, the chief of communication at UNICEF, state of Palestine.
04:50Thank you very much.
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