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From Rafah, at the southern end of the Gaza Strip bordering Egypt, he describes a sea of improvised tents, where 1.3 million Palestinians are crowded, amidst the echo of Israeli bombings coming from the city of Khan Younis. , about five kilometers to the north.
In a conversation interrupted by continuous phone line outages, Jonathan Crickx, head of rights defense and communications for Unicef in Palestine, recalls that the population has quintupled in the south of the coastal enclave due to the massive displacement forced by the war.
"Every day more arrive here, where they can barely be offered a little food and some water to survive, between 1.5 and 2 liters per head per day for drinking, cooking and washing," warns this humanitarian worker from the UN children's agency, born in Belgium 47 years ago and cut his teeth in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Some of his United Nations colleagues in Gaza have lost family members.
Dozens of them have even died.
“Since the start of the war, more than 150 employees of UNRWA (the UN agency for Palestinian refugees) have perished in Israeli attacks,” he says.
With 13,000 employees in the Gaza Strip, it is the main organization helping the civilian population.
Two million of the enclave's 2.3 million inhabitants depend on this agency to survive.
The United Nations has fired several workers from this agency after being accused by Israel of being involved in the attack launched by Hamas in which some 1,200 people died in Israeli territory.
UNRWA has already warned that it will not be able to continue helping Gaza after February if the fifteen countries that have withdrawn their economic support, including the US, the United Kingdom and Germany, do not resume their contributions.
The usual constraints faced by the agency can be exacerbated by lack of funding.
The humanitarian situation in the Palestinian Strip threatens to be taxed if it is left without more than half of its income when the main donors materialize their decision.
“The hygienic conditions in Rafah are terrible, there is only one latrine for every 500 or 700 people, which leads to the spread of diseases such as chronic diarrhea,” he points out.
“In the few weeks since the end of December, we have gone from 40,000 to 70,000 cases;
and it is one of the main causes of infant mortality.
The impact of war on children's health is very worrying,” she adds.
In Rafah, where he sees numerous buildings destroyed by Israeli bombing, Crickx reports that there are no direct attacks now.
“The war has already caused more than 26,000 deaths, of which 70% are women and children,” he cites data from the Gaza Ministry of Health, “but the situation is very complex and we can only make estimates, without being able to differentiate by type of victims.”
He believes that given the internal exodus of the population and with most hospitals destroyed or about to collapse, “counting child deaths is a challenge.”
In health centers that are still partially functioning, it is confirmed that the occupancy rate exceeds up to 300% of the patient care capacity.
“In a recent case, a woman who had given birth by cesarean section was discharged a few hours later [in order to free up a bed],” she details.
“He didn't even know how to clean the wound.”
She admitted this to the Unicef staff who treated her in southern Gaza.
“There are many minors hospitalized in hallways for lack of other space, with hardly any assistance or medication,” warns the representative of the United Nations agency.
The World Health Organization (WHO) in turn describes a dramatic situation in hospitals, with an almost absolute lack of anesthesia and painkillers, and basic medications.
From the tent city that has emerged in recent weeks, Crickx recognizes that the war threatens to approach the Egyptian border.
“No one knows when it will get here, so we hope there will be a ceasefire as soon as possible,” he says.
Before the war, some 400,000 children required mental health treatment and psychological support in Gaza.
After the outbreak of war, Unicef maintains that practically all children in the Strip (40% of its 2.3 million inhabitants are under 15 years old) are in a situation of maximum vulnerability.
A child waits in a line to receive water, in Rafah, on January 28.
SALEH SALEM (REUTERS)
“There are a million children in Gaza traumatized by the war waiting for a ceasefire,” summarizes the alarm launched by Unicef from the Palestinian coastal enclave.
“We do not have access to all the children, but in view of the duration and intensity of the fighting, we estimate that all of them already need mental and psychological health care,” he emphasizes.
“I have felt helpless”
The humanitarian worker says from Rafah that almost all the children he has interviewed have confessed that they had lost a member of their family in the fighting.
He cites the case of Hasane, an 11-year-old girl.
“It really impacted me.
She has lost her father, her mother, her brother and her two sisters, and she has also lost a leg in the war,” she remembers.
“It was difficult for me to hear the story of a girl bathed in tears marked by so much grief.
“I felt helpless.”
“But many people, many children, also died on October 7, in an absolutely horrific attack in Israel,” says Crickx.
“What is really needed in Gaza, in addition to urgent humanitarian aid, is a long and lasting ceasefire.
The pain you feel here is very intense.
For the sake of all children, the fighting must stop.”
“The aid that comes in is insufficient”
“As you can see for yourself, we have a lot of difficulty maintaining communications and coordinating our work.
For example, to try to get medical supplies to a hospital,” he explains between line cuts last Saturday.
“The aid that is entering Gaza is insufficient.
For security reasons, it is also not possible to reach everyone who needs help and all areas of the Strip,” Crickx acknowledges.
“Unicef is distributing highly nutritious baby food to 40,000 children under five years of age, an age group in which there are 330,000 children in the Gaza Strip.
We cannot satisfy all the needs,” laments the representative of the UN children's agency.
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