Warning 'screaming out' over Israeli plans for Gaza

The Herald Scotland

09-07-2025

James Elder is UNICEF's global spokesperson and has recently returned from Gaza, having travelled back and forth to the occupied territory since November 2023.
Speaking to The Herald in March of 2024, he said the southern city of Rafah was the "last hope" and should a threatened Israeli incursion take place it would take the situation "to a level of darkness we haven't seen, that the world keeps promising itself it won't get to".
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Since then things have escalated beyond even that. The International Court of Justice, which is currently considering an accusation of genocide brought against Israel by South Africa, ordered the invasion to be halted, an order with which the IDF did not comply.
Donald Trump, the U.S President, has talked about a plan to "clean out" the besieged enclave and move the population to Egypt and Jordan, while earlier this year he declared: "If we could find the right piece of land, or numerous pieces of land... I think that would be a lot better than going back to Gaza."
Earlier this week Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, laid out a plan to force the entire Palestinian population into the ruins of Rafah and prevent them from leaving.
This was described as a 'humanitarian zone' by the minister. Michael Sfard, one of Israel's leading human rights lawyers, called it "an operational plan for a crime against humanity".
Mr Elder tells The Herald: "It's beyond troubling, but it's so troubling because statements are being made which, on paper, are breaches of international humanitarian law.
'All the warning signs are there and they're supported by what you see on the ground. 85% of Gaza is under evacuation order, ongoing indiscriminate attacks are killing large numbers of children.
'To see the lack of action from member states when there is an obligation to act if you're aware of grave violations being committed by another member... we have the actions on the ground and all the statements being made. Every warning sign is screaming out for action to be taken.
Hamam Al-Farani, center left, sits next to his sister, in white, being comforted, along with other family members as the body of their father, Alaa, killed in an Israeli army strike that also injured the boy, is prepared for burial (Image: AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi) 'Palestinians are painfully aware that the world is looking away.
"I don't know many other places where everyday people are aware of international humanitarian law, the people of Gaza are very educated and people have said to me: 'we're aware international humanitarian law doesn't apply to us'.
'It's devastating for people to feel they are ignored and forgotten, and being ignored and forgotten means that the bombings can continue, the forced displacement can continue, and the degradation of food, water and medicine can continue.
'There's something lethal in what being forgotten actually means.'
Following the collapse of a previous ceasefire, Israel blocked humanitarian aid from entering Gaza for more than two months.
Since May 26 a new body, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has taken over much of the aid delivery in the occupied territory which Israel says will prevent looting and stop Hamas from stealing aid.
James Elder of Unicef (Image: Supplied) Humanitarian groups have warned that the organisation is a cover for the forced depopulation of the Palestinian people, with over 600 killed and more than 4,000 wounded by contractors hired by GHF, armed gangs, and Israeli forces while seeking aid.
An investigation by Haaretz found IDF officers and soldiers were ordered to fire at unarmed crowds at the sites, even with no threat present, while one Palestinian told +972 the scheme amounted to a humiliation ritual, forcing people to take "food wrapped in humiliation and disgrace" from "the hands of our enemy".
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation operates four distribution centres, all in areas under full Israeli control, compared to the 400 UN distribution points used during the last ceasefire.
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Mr Elder says: "Statements have been made about aid diversion (by Hamas): just show the evidence. The evidence is not there, the statements made around that are an attempt to sideline the humanitarian system.
"That system was successful during the Ethiopia famine, in Somalia, in Nigeria, or right now in Sudan.
'A few months ago there were 400 UN distribution points and UNICEF was going door to door – that's how you do humanitarian aid.
'When you have a population under that amount of stress you've got to go to where they are and you've got to work based on data and evidence, you need to know the things you're doing are making a tangible difference.
'During the ceasefire, when we had 400 distribution points, you started seeing malnutrition going down, disease going down, access to water increasing."
Mr Elder pauses, and sighs.
'The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation… I haven't quite seen anything like it," he continues.
'In my job you get a key message document passed around and we were very clear: you can't have a handful of distribution points, you can't use aid as bait. What about the elderly? What about single mums? What about the wounded? It's not going to safe because you can't force people into a militarised corridor to get aid. All of those things.
'Then you get there and you see it playing out. I had an old woman who was in tears, she was five miles away from an aid distribution site, she couldn't ever get there.
'I met three brothers who were all in their 20s or 30s who had been seven times and never received aid.
'It's serving a section of the population that is not the most vulnerable, it's the young and strong who go there. They get a sack with flour, cooking oil or sugar and then they sell it.
'It's not serving the needs so you have to ask, then, what was the purpose?
'The arguments around looting and aid diversion just don't stack up. Looting happens because when there's that much deprivation and you're only allowed one aid corridor people will do roadside distributions. When consistent aid is allowed in, as it was during the ceasefire, the black market is gone.
'I think we've now seen 20 different casualty events. I met a 23-year-old woman in a hospital, she had wounds from being pushed into the barbed wire, like it was a cattle pen, but she'll go back because, in her words, 'just don't let me die with an empty stomach'. She's the eldest in her family and her father has a heart condition.
'Dignity is being stripped everywhere and I think that's an important word. Right now we're at the point in Gaza where it's like, 'as long as they're getting food and water' – but dignity matters greatly.
'One man, who had a family, was successful (in getting aid) but he got there are 7-8pm and they had to stand there, caged in, for about four hours. A drone went over and just started firing at people, he saw people shot.
'He spoke perfect English and he asked me, 'James, why did they do that? We did everything right'. It's not my place to say why they did that, but it's a question Palestinians often ask.
'We described these sites so well before they opened: that they were baiting people, that they were using aid to forcibly displace the population – not our words, the words of the government – and then you see the reality that it's might versus right.
'Most people aren't getting a skerrick of aid, and these casualty events are going on while somewhere else in the Gaza Strip the World Food Programme or UNICEF is doing nutrition distribution where people aren't dying and you don't have mass casualty events every single day.
'It would be laughable if it wasn't such a lethal Catch-22, that you can push a population into a militarised zone which is the only place for food and then justify killing them because they're in a militarised zone.
'When I first got there a Palestinian called them The Hunger Games, another said to me recently it was like Judgement Day.
'But people will go again, even knowing they've had a family member shot or killed, because the alternative is quite literally starvation. It's a grotesque system, and what's most frustrating is there was a system several months ago that was starting to change the game in Gaza for the better.'