Antoine Renard: No. In fact, today we met a number of people, and you can sense within Gaza – I’m currently in Deir al-Balah, in south-central Gaza – there’s a profound sense of relief and especially hope related to the ceasefire that is looming. There is one woman that I’ve met, Naima. The first thing that she said, she said, I want to come back to my land. She wants to go back to Beit Hanoun. So this is more, it’s a hope message that you hear from people on the ground.
Cathy Newman: And yet, even after the ceasefire was announced, there was still violence. It was quite a bloody night, wasn’t it?
Antoine Renard: The challenge that you have is that at the end of any conflict, and when you’re coming to a ceasefire, and the last few days are always, you know, quite challenging.
Cathy Newman: But people must still be fearful because, you know, they’re daily risking their lives, so close to peace and yet they must fear that any moment they could be killed.
Antoine Renard: That’s the challenge that we’ve been having for the last 15 months. And I think that’s why we’ve always been saying that the ceasefire has been long overdue. And that’s why now we need actually to stand and make sure that we are, you know, coping with what is their hope. And I think that’s why we need to ensure that we are moving forward.
Cathy Newman: There is now expected to be a surge in aid going in, isn’t there? Is that what you’re expecting? Are you sort of waiting for this great arrival of much-needed supplies, really?
Antoine Renard: I mean, for us, and this has been a request, let’s say for now 15 months into this conflict. We’ve always been asking to make sure that we can run our programme and the skills that is required. We’re supposed to serve 1.1 million people, UNRWA is the same type of assistance in the same level in scale. So for us that, you know, the ceasefire is actually an opportunity for us to reach the scale in a number of people that really require access to basic services, and especially in our case, food assistance. When I look at July and August, we were having an average 200 trucks. That was commercial and humanitarian assistance. And then we faced in the course of September, I would say till December, major challenges related to ensure still the level that is required to actually sustain basic food assistance into the strip.
Cathy Newman: Israel has denied restricting aid going in, but do you think they’re fulfilling their legal obligations or not?
Antoine Renard: The challenge we have, and we’ve been systematically raising this, we’ve been advocating for a number of months to have more crossings. But, in fact, it’s not sufficient, the idea of just crossings. They need to be reliable. They need to be sustained. And the second challenge that we have is also within Gaza to make sure that we are not being attacked and looted. And that has been a combination of sustained, predictable crossings and as well to make sure that the assistance within Gaza is actually reaching the population.
Cathy Newman: And that’s armed gangs and Palestinians looting.
Antoine Renard: Correct. And that’s the challenge that we have, is that the law and order has been a systematic priority for us, to ensure that as humanitarians, we can actually have being on our side the food assistance before any humanitarian to keep medical up and running, to make sure that the water is coming, is actually to prevent that. Any of the different corridors are not able through the crossings because it is being looted inside.