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00:00While starting this weekend, there will be a series of humanitarian pauses in Gaza as the
00:04World Health Organization launches a major vaccination campaign against polio. Over the
00:09course of three days, over 600,000 children will be vaccinated against the virus, which has returned
00:15to Gaza after being eradicated 25 years ago. For more on the humanitarian situation in the Enclave,
00:21I'm pleased to welcome on set Jacob Granger, the humanitarian project coordinator for Doctors
00:26Without Borders. Thank you so much for being here. Hello, Alison. Thank you for having me.
00:31And I know you've just returned from Gaza. Can you talk about kind of exactly when you
00:35were there for how long and what parts of the Enclave you were able to access?
00:39Yes, of course. So I've been in Gaza for six weeks in total. I came back last week
00:48and we have activities in three governorates of Gaza. So one up in the north, which is Gaza City,
00:57the other one is Deir el-Bala in the middle, and the last one is a little bit more south,
01:02it's Khan Younes governorate. So you've kind of traveled all across the Enclave.
01:07How was that experience? I mean, was it easy? And did it feel safe to get around?
01:12Safe is not a good word. That's for sure. As of today and when I was over there,
01:18there's no place safe in Gaza. That's for sure. And easy, it's of course not easy. It can be more
01:25or less difficult for some or other people. But how it's like, it's in the first time what you
01:32really see. It's easy to see that all this infrastructure are destroyed. And it's impressive
01:40because before going there, I knew that I saw pictures, I saw videos, but it's not the same
01:46when you are inside and you see really the amount of destruct buildings. And then you also have what
01:55is kind of easy to see to the people. So it's the first time of my life that I see so many people
02:01missing some members, you know, some arms, some legs, and people, I don't know, from both gender,
02:09from every age, and so on. So no, it's definitely not easy. And it's something that
02:17I needed some time to process it a little bit once I was outside of Gaza.
02:23Yeah, it sounds like it was worse than you've even expected it to be.
02:27It's something intellectually, we can see the numbers, and it's quite easy to have these
02:32numbers. So as of today, in the so-called humanitarian zone, so quite a little zone in
02:38Gaza, I think it's about 11% of the overall territory of Gaza. UN agencies esteem that
02:46there are between 1.7 and 1.9 million people on the overall before the 7th of October,
02:55we're talking about 2.2 million people within the Gaza Strip. So it's overcrowded everywhere.
03:04But meaning, we are not in the part of the city where you can have buildings and the people can
03:10be there. But you are in a part of the city where there are no buildings, it's near the coastal,
03:15the coast, and you see amounts of tents, and really, people everywhere. And then you can
03:22imagine the living condition of this. It's families that had to be displaced because of
03:27security reasons several times. So among our Palestinian colleagues, the average would be
03:34six times, six times to move because of security reason, since the 7th of October, it's huge,
03:40you know. And then you don't have the hygiene, the water for this. So one of the huge risks that
03:48we have is related to the water. There's not enough water for the people over there. And
03:54it's really important that humanitarian action and also the donors and everyone that can help
04:00helps to get more water over there. Cholera has been a big concern. Is that something
04:06the Doctors Without Borders has been working on? So no, for now, no, because Gaza has been
04:12cholera-less since a long time. So hopefully, it's not going to be the case.
04:18And there's this mass polio vaccination set to take place amid pauses in the fighting.
04:22Can you talk a bit about what the challenges of such a vast campaign are going to be?
04:28It's the same challenges that the one we have for every medical action over there. So it's
04:35too crowded. It's too difficult to really plan and organize something. It's really dangerous as
04:40well. And then you can treat polio, but you have all the rest. And when you take just a rope,
04:48you're going to have several problems you need to assess and you need to have an answer for.
04:53And so it's not just polio, it's also all the other disease. And then for all, the most important
05:00would be the mental health of these people. So just if I have time to develop a little bit,
05:06if you imagine the story of one of the people we could have during a mass casualty incident. So
05:14by example, the 22nd of July, there was a big military operation, and an entire part of Han
05:21Yonah city have been evacuated. So Israeli army asked the people to evacuate because they had to
05:28do a military operation over there. And this day we had what we called a rolling mass casualty
05:35incident. The entire day we had cars coming with injured people. In total, it was around 80
05:43dead inside the hospital and around 250 injured or something like this. This is huge. This is
05:50something a hospital in Paris is not able to cope with. And among these people you have,
05:56I don't know, there was this boy losing a leg. And you just imagine the state of mind of this boy,
06:05losing his home, his leg, maybe someone of his family and then waking up and realising all of
06:11this. And every day he's going to be reminded that he lost his leg and he needs some stability
06:18and he needs some safety to be able to heal from this. But as for today and since 11 months,
06:25there's no security, there's no safety, there's no stability in Gaza. So it's not possible for
06:30him to heal. There are so many horrible stories coming out of Gaza. We're going to have to let
06:36you go in a moment. But I did just want to ask, for people that aren't there, the Israeli
06:42military and government talks a lot about how impossible it is to separate Hamas militants
06:48who hide among civilians. I'm curious as an aid worker, do you encounter Hamas authorities or
06:53fighters? Do you see them at all? Did you have any kind of interaction with them?
06:59The definition of Hamas is quite complicated. And as a humanitarian, we have a really simplistic
07:06approach. We have an action based on need. So if someone is sick, we are going to heal him.
07:13We don't care if he's this one or that one. A sick person needs to be cared of and that's it.
07:23Absolutely. And then finally, Jacob, just any last message that having been in Gaza yourself,
07:28you know, that you want to help people who are outside understand as we watch, you know,
07:32the ongoing coverage of this war. Yes, the humanity of the people in Gaza. I really want
07:38to finish on this because in a war like this, it's really complicated to speak and to think
07:44about humanity. But there you see a lot of people with the fireflies. You see a lot of people with
07:49some ice sorbet. You know, you see a lot of haircut dresser shop within the tents. And I
07:57really like this idea. Like it's so human over there and it's so difficult to be human. But still,
08:04it's impossible to deny the state of humanity. And it's nice to hear that there is still sorbet
08:10and fireflies in Gaza amidst all of that destruction. Thank you again so much for
08:14joining us. Again, that's Jacob Granger, the humanitarian project coordinator for
08:18Doctors Without Borders. He has just returned from Gaza.