Health, Dignity and Recovery:

00:00:00:09 - 00:05:39:11

Larry Garber

Okay. We can get started. My name is Larry Garber. I'm a board member of the United for Dignity Alliance, and it's my pleasure to welcome everyone to this webinar. Let me start by saying Ramadan Kareem to those who are observing Ramadan this month, and particularly welcome our panelists who who have been in Gaza and have been fasting there.

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And we really appreciate you taking the time to share with us your perspectives. The goal of this webinar is to update folks on the situation in Gaza, including developments since the establishment of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza and the first meeting that took place last week in Washington of the Board of Peace, and just what impact that's having on Gaza specifically.

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We'll also discuss the impact of various interventions by international and Palestinian NGOs on the situation in Gaza, particularly in the health sector, but also more broadly. And last, we'll discuss the potential consequences of the March 1st deadline, which is now only two days away –for that requires international NGOs to register with the Israeli authorities–and what happens for those organizations that have been denied registration and what that impact is on the ground in Gaza for the delivery of services.

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We're very fortunate today to have two Palestinian medical professionals who will serve as our panelists and guides. First, Dr. Musallam Abukhalil is the founder and CEO of the Gaza Cancer and Chronic Care Network, which merged with various partners to create the United for Dignity Alliance in December 2025. He's a Palestinian physician and humanitarian leader with extensive experience in internal medicine, emergency response and health system coordination in conflict settings. He serves as the Health Technical Lead for Project Hope in Gaza, overseeing medical strategy and health services across primary care clinics and emergency medical teams. In 2024, he launched a humanitarian initiative providing care to more than 100,000 displaced people and continues to shape its mission and operations. He now also works a couple of days a week at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and will be talking about some of his impressions from there.

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Dr. Amani Saleh Alsattari is a general practitioner and the program manager for UFDA's Haven Maternal and Newborn Health Program in Gaza. She graduated also from the Islamic University of Gaza and has been working on the frontline throughout the current crisis, supporting mothers and newborns at Nasser Medical Complex and across various displacement camps. She brings both strong clinical experience and humanitarian leadership, having worked with organizations including UK Med and Heal Palestine. On a daily basis, she coordinates doctors and midwives and leads community outreach to make sure women continue to receive safe and dignified care.

 

The format for today is that I'll start by asking both Musallam and Amani a series of questions. At about halfway through, we will open the floor for questions from the audience. Please raise your virtual hand or place your question in the chat. We will then unmute you and we will call on you and you will be able to ask your question live to Dr. AbuKhalil and Dr. Alsattari.

 

And just so that everyone knows we are recording today's session and will make it available on the UFDA website for those who were not able to join today. I should say a number of folks that I invited are attending a rally to mark the one year anniversary of the demise of the U.S. Agency for International Development that's taking place downtown. And so some folks particularly asked me if we could share the recording because they're going to this rally.

 

So let me start with you, Musallam, and ask you a few questions just to get us up to date on the situation in Gaza. And so can you provide us an update on just what's happening on the ground? Particularly, we're now in the Ramadan month. Is there food available for people to purchase? What type of iftars are taking place after the fast? Just give us a sense of what life is like in Gaza and maybe you know specifically where you are.

 

00:05:39:16 - 00:10:05:01

Dr. Musallam

Thank you, Larry. And thank you, everyone, for being here. Truly. Very quickly, for those who don't know, United for Dignity Alliance is Gaza led and internationally supported. We are nonpolitical. We do emergency relief. We try to keep critical health care going. We are trying to also make investments in the early recovery, civilian assistance in Gaza, because you cannot separate survival from recovery.

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Now, people ask us all the time, is food in the market? And the the answer is really complicated. What I have been saying, what we are seeing right now, is that there is more on the shelves of markets than before. But for many families, especially those who are living in displacement camps, and those count in the hundreds of thousands of people, those items are naturally inaccessible because cash is the missing ingredient.

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Some of the reporting we have that has come out of Gaza is that the markets really function with more goods visible, but at prices that some of the people cannot afford. And this is really happening in an environment with continued extreme poverty and economic collapse and for that, the humanitarian food is doing the heavy lifting.

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For some of those families in displacement camps, it's the only source for their daily supplies and needs. For example, the U.N., which really describes that on one hand, 1.75 million hot meals are being provided every day and delivered to those families. But at the same time, that reporting also warns that the ration sizes of those deliveries have been reduced and the stocks that they already have are still insufficient even at that reduced distribution.

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Some of the families that we have been providing support to tell us that they always try to find a new organization to fill up their need for the next week. And for some of them, this means that they will have to go constantly to community kitchens waiting in line to be delivered one meal that could not be sufficient for a family of five or six or seven on afterwards.

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The people are absolutely trying to keep the spirit of Ramadan, which we have used to live before October the seventh, and they are doing this with the new ways they're doing this with, as I mentioned, community kitchens. They are sometimes doing this with shared meals between the families living next to each other in the displacement camps. Sometimes they try to do this, but this is very much a scaled down than previously seen in the past, especially with Ramadan before the war.

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And it's really because everything is fragile and everything is almost dependent on aid distribution and the local improvisation. So the this is not something that families are. Yes, Ramadan is always better with no active war happening around you, but still inaffordability, inaccessibility and inconsistency of the flow of assistance to your family is something that really makes Ramadan very, very difficult for for hundreds of thousands of families in Gaza.

 

00:10:06:04 - 00:10:30:13

Larry Garber

So let me ask you, Musallam, as a follow up, what is the actual security situation in Gaza? Do people feel safe on the streets? Are you able to travel, for example, from your home to the hospital in Khan Younis, without fear? You know, and how visible are the Hamas security or police forces on the streets in the various towns?

 

00:10:31:23 - 00:15:44:17

Dr. Musallam

Yeah, so people have been always talking in the last week about the phase two of the ceasefire. And for us in Gaza, the phase two is really a checklist and that the phase two really requires at least three things to be true at the same time.

 

First, I think the people in Gaza really need to be able to move and work without gambling with their lives every day. Yes, the there is a formal ceasefire taking place, but there is also scattered or occasional gun fires and strikes the last of which happened in the last ten days when security checkpoints in the south have been targeted and so even though there is a ceasefire framework with a ceiling, we're still seeing these airstrikes and gunfire and many, many have been accidentally injured and killed during this timeframe and also including against medical and humanitarian sites. So the ceasefire really did not translate for us into the safer streets rule.

 

The second thing that must take place in this Phase two is that we need the predictable access. So the aid is really coming in. But the the missions that have to be deployed into Gaza still get denied. They are still being delayed. And sometimes the rations that families receive really get cut. And when that's happening, the families in these displacement camps really feel it immediately.

 

And the third thing that must happen during this phase two and this really ties to this security situation and the safety is that there must be a civilian, a real civilian, authority that has to be able to work and operate across Gaza, and they have to be working or operating inside Gaza with a clear mandate.

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They have to operate them with a clear budget and with a clear security cover. Yes, the US has been telling us, telling the world, that they have that. That the Phase two has been announced and that even the technocratic committee and international stabilization force will be taken over. But there is a huge gap between what's being announced and what's being implemented.

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And as many of you know, the National Committee for Gaza, for the administration of Gaza is still waiting in Cairo, have not been able to come into Gaza to rebuild and to restart the the construction in Gaza.

 

Now regarding the security situation in Gaza, there is visible policing and there is law and order efforts in some areas. But this is only as we have seen in the form of several checkpoints that is being struck. And this is why this is really important. The politics of the security arrangement in Gaza is still unresolved. And there are some reports that the national committee is recruiting for a new police force in Gaza and they are trying to build them up to scale up.

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But the fact is there is conflict around that. There is existing police and civil servants within the existing Palestinian government in Gaza. And this means that the corps, the corps that really provide security is still unresolved. So there is this tension between the two, you know, actual facts on the ground.

 

Now, all of us want security but the conflict or the dispute here is really about the sequencing, who disarms and when and under what protections and what are the guarantees that the civilians really don't pay the price between those periods of transition, just like we did when we have a complete security collapse during the active days of the war: when there were humanitarian attacks, when looted, when homes were stolen, and where people did not feel safe to leave their houses to pick up things from from the market. So we don't want this to be happening again because of the security gap that is going, I think, going to take place during this transitional period.

 

00:15:45:17 - 00:16:45:15

Larry Garber

So let me ask you one other question then I'm going to turn to Amani. We've heard a lot about the Israeli denial of registration for various international NGOs, including Doctors Without Borders, which we know as Médecins Sans Frontieres, which, you know, has a major role to play in the health sector, including at Nasser Hospital. We also heard a couple of weeks ago that MSF had announced that it was stopping certain non critical medical procedures because of their concerns about, you know, Hamas or other armed folks in the hospital area.

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You work down there. I'm curious as to your impressions, both of what is going on at the hospital, but also, you know, what has been the impact of the MSF announcement?

 

00:16:47:01 - 00:19:59:01

Dr. Musallam

Yeah, honestly, as I work in the Nasser medical complex and Khan Yunis and what we have seen on the news websites, their public rationale, is that the there was safety, there was staff and patient safety after an alleged security incident taking place inside the hospital. And this is something and they made that decision to scale down their non-essential services.

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But this decision is not just something to do with one organization, MSF, Doctors Without Borders, is actually responsible for many of the critical orthopedic surgeries and services inside medical, the site and also the hospital, including rehabilitation services and outpatient clinics, which many, many direct casualties of this war depend on, especially in an area where you don't only have the population of Khan Yunis–crowded and stranded together in one place–but you also have the population of Rafah, which is now completely inaccessible to those families.

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So this is a massive medical complex in which MSF has provided significant support to. It's now feeling the brunt of this, you know, decision in terms of the impact we have seen when the major medical actors like MSF really scaled down their operations in an area which I describe as the major hub of medical services in the south, even if only partially, the pressure really shifts in onto everyone else.

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For example, MSF is not the only organization which has been banned from continuing operation in Gaza for international staff and the entry of essential supplies. But there is also another 36 or 37 of them. So you can imagine the intense, enormous health care burden that is falling into other, you know, sometimes small, very effective, but smaller providers or partners here in Gaza.

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So this is going to be a huge blow to the already collapsing health care system in Gaza. And as of today, MSF has published a very brief video about the international staff who is now deployed in Gaza, who have been asked to leave Gaza by tomorrow beginning March the first. None of those organizations will be allowed the entry of international staff who have been working hand in hand with the already outstretched medical providers in Nasser Medical Complex, but also in other hospitals.

 

00:20:00:09 - 00:20:24:21

Larry Garber

Okay, so let me turn to Dr. Amani and maybe just to narrow down and focus specifically on the situation of women in Gaza with whom you work and mothers, young teenagers, and what are their concerns today? What are they most concerned about when it comes to whether it's health issues or broader social issues?

 

00:20:25:19 - 00:23:11:19

Dr. Amani Saleh

Okay. Thank you all for being here and taking the time to listen.

 

So when people ask me what women are most worried about right now in Gaza is the most important thing for them is stability. I hear questions like, Will the war come back before my baby even grows up? And, will the crossings stay open or will they close again?​ Can they go back home? And if they close, will the prices go crazy again? Essential items like milk, diapers and everything? Will I be able to raise my kids without consistent worry for food and supplies? And will life ever feel normal – like we can go out in peace and get to feel life again like we used to? And under those questions, a bigger feeling, a feeling that women are tired of uncertainty.

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And so from a health perspective, pregnancy is happening right now inside a crisis. There are still tens of thousands of pregnant women across Gaza and births are happening every day. So we are also seeing the impact of hunger, stress on mothers. Malnutrition among newborns, pregnant, and breastfeeding women has been a major concern.

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And the partners screening women have found really alarming levels of malnutrition. And the question for them is not only the safe delivery, they are asking if they can safely deliver and keep their baby safe after. And another very big issue is the information gap. A lot of women who knew a little tell us that no one explained this to us before, just they never had the chance to ask and no one sat with them long enough.

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And I think this isn't only about a pregnancy. It's too many saying that it is basic female dignity. It's period health, hygiene and like privacy, safety, menstrual hygiene has been a real crisis for women and girls because supplies and water and privacy all are disrupted in these days.

 

00:23:11:19 - 00:23:30:22

Larry Garber

So can you describe a little bit, Amani, about how different organizations are responding to, you know, this crisis, this ongoing crisis? What are some of the activities that you observe that you're involved in, you know, to help out in this respect?

 

00:23:30:22 - 00:25:20:19

Dr. Amani Saleh

What we see on the ground is that everyone is trying their best, but the need is is still bigger than the response. So hospitals are working, but hospitals are also stretched. Our health system has been repeatedly damaged, as you know. And so you hear services exist, that mean yes, they exist,​ but they are fragile.

 

So staff are exhausted. Essential supplies come and go. And the caseload is very heavy on the team and on the hospital staff and international partners like UNFPA, W.H.O. and UNICEF are supporting in specific ways. They are supporting maternal health services and supporting with dignity counseling, nutrition screening, protection and gender based services.

 

But here's the honest part. It's true the ceasefire created a little more room to work, but things are still very fragile and they can reverse quickly.

 

And I think these people sometimes underestimate, as a protection, gender-based violence rises, especially with overcrowding, displacement and loss of privacy and economic stress. It's happening every day. So we have this combination of medical needs, protection needs and mental health needs all at the same time.

 

00:25:20:19 - 00:25:59:07

Larry Garber

So let me ask you the same question I asked Musallam about the impact of these organizations that were denied registration and that are supposed to somehow close down their operations as of March 1st. What do you see in terms of the specific area where you work, in terms of maternal health and reproductive health? What will be the impact of, you know, the decision for these organizations to have to leave?

 

00:26:00:11 - 00:29:13:06

Dr. Amani Alsattari

Well, yeah, so let me answer that in two parts. Inside Nasser Medical Complex and outside Nasser Medical Complex.

 

Inside Nasser, in last two months alone based on our team's internal caseload tracking, we have seen close to 1000 women come through the obstetrics department in emergencies, like emergency deliveries. and surgeries like caesarean sections and postpartum complications.​ 

 

In the consultation and the family planning cases and visits, we focus a lot on early recognition. So we are trying to catch warning signs before they become disasters. And sometimes the most important thing we do is not the clinical. It's giving her a space to talk and to be talked to.

 

So now outside Nasser Medical Complex, this is where I really wanted to emphasize the community work, because the hospital can be far. Transportation, as you know, is very hard and there often isn't time for long conversations, education and reassurance because teams in the hospital are busy with emergencies – and always the next emergency is already coming.

 

So we go into the camps and communities and we talk in simple language about the things women actually ask about. We talk about gender-based violence because it's increased during the war, and it doesn't disappear after the war.​ So women need safe spaces and they need to know what's support exists.

 

We talk about a pregnancy, what's normal, what's dangerous, and when you should seek help immediately. We talk about the menstrual period and menstrual health, and it's not small because it's been extremely hard to manage with this shortage and this limited wash access. We talk about hygiene, using what's realistically available.

 

No one needs perfect advice.​ But it doesn't match their reality. And honestly, I think half of the value is just listening to women. Women stay after sessions and they tell us we need more of this. And many say that this is the first time someone explained it clearly to us.

 

And a lot of women are not only asking for information. It's simple what they are asking for, they are asking for reassurance and for someone to answer their questions without judgment or out without rushing.

 

00:29:14:20 - 00:29:38:01

Larry Garber

And I mean, I take it this is part of your vision for a future work within you UFDA in terms of Reproductive health initiative, or do you want to add anything to to where you'd like to see this initiative go within within the work of the new organization?

 

00:29:38:01 - 00:31:06:23

Dr. Amani Alsattari

Yeah. I want us to move from the emergency response only mode, to something stable and consistent. That means two things happening at the same time: inside hospitals we want to support equality, agreements are shared which are full of respect for maternity care and strong coordination.

 

As well as in communities, we need regular education and support for women.​ We want to do this so women understand their bodies. Women should know danger signs and know their options and can feel less lonely. And I want mental health to be treated like a part of maternal health. Mental health, I think, should not be an extra to our programs.​ It must be integrated to our maternal health program.

 

And if recovery is real, women should feel it is the most basic places: safe delivery, honest answers, being treated with dignity. And that's what we are trying to build here in Gaza.

 

00:31:06:23 - 00:32:10:09

Larry Garber

Great. So I want to open it up to invite others to ask questions of Musallam and Amani. As I said, if you can raise your virtual hand, that would be great. I'll call on you, I'll unmute you and you can ask questions. I'll ask one more question while people are getting ready to raise their hands.

 

For Musallam, just if you can talk a little bit about the, you know, the the situation vis a vis the what we call the de facto authorities in Gaza, do they impose any restrictions on your ability to operate as an NGO?​ What are the sensitivities of working in Gaza today, the political sensitivities of working in Gaza today as it affects your operations?

 

And like I said, if you can raise your hands right after this question, we'll start taking questions from the audience. Go ahead. Yeah.

 

00:32:11:04 - 00:34:54:03

Dr. Musallam

Yeah. In terms of implementing humanitarian or developmental activities in Gaza, there are so many political sensitivities that are constraints and actually constraints around, you know, humanitarian operations right now.

 

It's not only coming from one political entity, it's coming from everybody from within the Gaza Strip. There are certain administrative requirements to coordinate the delivery of assistance into different geographies of the Gaza Strip.​ And this is one part of the equation.

 

The second part of the equation is that there is also this new requirement of having an Israeli registration for all international non-governmental organizations to be able to legally operate within Palestinian territories. Not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank.

 

And also about the potential closure or ban and pressure that is coming out of those requirements if those certain organizations do not comply.

 

Now with the de facto authorities in Gaza, there is this as I mentioned before, the coordination and the regulatory framework that all organizations have to comply with. For example, for health activities in Gaza, the Ministry of Health, the government-run Ministry of Health, does organize the service and mapping of those.

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And you and primary care centers or field hospitals that would be set up for the Ministry of Social, Social Affairs. Any food distribution or aid distribution that is going to take place must also be coordinated with them. This is how far we have seen in terms of the administrative interference in NGO work. We don't know if this is something that is applicable across all of our larger organizations or not, but I think in the coming few weeks when the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, there will be more more robust and consistent practice around, you know, coordinating the activities, the multi-sectarian activities of the NGO sector in Gaza.

 

00:34:55:08 - 00:35:12:11

Larry Garber

Great. So I'm going to turn now to the audience. I see a question by Howard ZAMKA. So, Howard, if you could unmute and ask your question, that would be great and directed to either Musallam or Amani or both.

 

00:35:12:11 - 00:35:54:07

Howard

Okay. Thanks. This is, I think, for Musallam, and it sort of follows on the question you just asked and Musallam's answer.

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I'm curious Musallam, how you distinguish the security forces, how you know, who's out on the street, who is not Hamas. And when you say the civil police, who controls the civil police and who is the de facto local authority for that? And how much interference is there in your daily life, at least from the clans that were competing to take some control in different parts of the strip?

 

00:35:54:24 - 00:39:28:23

Dr. Musallam

Thank you so much, Howard, for your question. For the normal average Palestinian civilian who is living in Gaza, the understanding that they have around, who is a civil security police force that is just regulating or organizing the secure and safe movement of supplies and people from across different areas of the Gaza Strip – you can identify them by them having like security checkpoints that are scattered around the Gaza Strip. They have a civilian list that they identify with. And so those armed Palestinian forces are what we see as Palestinians helping with the safety and the security of those operations in Gaza.

 

Now, if we like it or not, there is also this certain fact that most of those low rank and file police forces are only coming for this for the simple purposes is that they want to have an income and they do not either identify against or with a certain identity. So that's very important to to have that distinction in place.

 

And now for us, we don't have that kind of questions. It's for political leaders to resolve and to worry about.

 

What we worry about as Palestinians in Gaza is that we want to have security.

 

We want to have people be able to move and things to be able to move without any trouble.

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Now, the second part of your question about this, the kind of interference that is in our daily activities or daily life as Palestinians. For me personally, I haven't seen any interference of that kind. But this is really dependent on the kind of work that you do. For example, some of the commercial traders across the Gaza Strip are sometimes asked to to provide, you know, certain fees or certain taxes.

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And this is unfortunately one of the hard administrative realities in Gaza, for example, to pay for the civil servants inside the Ministry of Health or other ministries, you will need cash. Though this is, I think, perhaps one important really, you know, I do not want to call it justification, but one use of that money that is being taken from the traders.

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This is not in in any way shape or form a political opinion or political analysis of what's happening in Gaza because believe me, Howard, when I say that none of that is really relevant to many of us because we just want to have stability, security and restoration. Normal life in Gaza and the rebuilding and reconstruction work in Gaza.

 

00:39:29:14 - 00:39:33:03

Larry Garber

Thank you, George. 

 

00:39:35:19 - 00:39:36:17

George

Hi there. Can you hear me?

 

00:39:37:09 - 00:39:38:19

Larry Garber

Yes. Coming through loud and clear.

 

00:39:39:11 - 00:40:06:03

George

Thank you so much for both of your time. This question is for both of you. But I wanted to ask about the presence of American mercenaries in Gaza currently, and specifically U.G. solutions which have been putting American soldiers at the kitchens and at food distribution distribution centers. I wanted to ask how it is that they're received and how it is that that general presence is currently. Thank you.

 

00:40:06:13 - 00:41:50:04

Dr. Musallam

Thank you, George. Now, for the last time we've asked, we've heard about the deployment of American military, private military contractors inside Gaza was when when the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was able to set up two major distribution hubs. One in central Gaza and one at least in Rafah to help with distribution and this has been publicly known and talked about within the civilian circles in Gaza.

 

I haven't heard or seen or have someone told me about the existence of additional American forces within the Gaza Strip. The thing is there will be never be a chance where those foreign military forces will be accepted and accommodated within the Gaza Strip. I think it's going to be a bad decision to have international foreign forces within the Gaza Strip to help with the security. Perhaps they could do something similar to help with the mentoring and coaching the Palestinian security forces, but not as as like an independent presence within the Gaza Strip.

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It's not going to be accepted in any way with the communities in Gaza.

 

00:41:50:04 - 00:41:53:06

Larry Garber

Amani, do you want to add anything on that?

 

00:41:56:08 - 00:41:57:12

Dr. Amani Alsattari

No, thank you.

 

00:41:57:23 - 00:42:56:22

Larry Garber

Okay. So let me ask a question and I invite others to raise their hand. But there's a question that came in from someone online before the session that I'll start with you, Amani, and then, Musallam, you can comment too. It's from the situation here in the context of ceasefire stage two. What does the current epidemiologic picture in Gaza reveal about acute and injury related conditions, and how does medicine availability, or the lack thereof, impact continuity of care and the transition from emergency response to sustained recovery?

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So again, what is the current state that you're dealing with and what are the available medicines that you can use to respond?

 

00:42:56:22 - 00:43:01:20

Dr. Amani Saleh

Okay One second

 

00:43:02:21 - 00:46:00:01

Dr. Musallam

Yeah, I think I'll make my comment really quickly before Amani answers it. The the lack of essential supplies in Gaza, including some essential medicines for patients who require chronic and maintenance treatment like patients with cancer and chronic disease are being affected the most since they depend on the regular delivery of their medications. And this is really the moment where a patient whose chronic condition is stabilized and followed up adequately is now having preventable complications. Like a hypertensive patient with hypertension, increased blood pressure, who is now not able to access their medications and will now have a stroke.

 

And then, you know, knock off complications like bedsores and inability to perform their daily activities without assistance. You effectively destroy someone's life. Someone at the age of 50 or 40 or 60, who should have perhaps additional ten or 20 or 30 years of their lives are now being paralyzed with complicated medical conditions because a simple essential medication was not available at some point in time.

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And we have seen this first hand. When I saw patients coming to the hospital and we admit them, the majority of cases that admit, it's not an overstatement to say, that the absolute majority of them do have one or more chronic disease as part of the reason why there has to be a medical history is complicated.

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And part of that can be attributed to them not having easy and accessible medical care because they have to travel some distance before they can get it. And the other reason is the medicines that they regularly take are not available. So this is a big issue in terms of the health logistics.

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If something really can fix many things in Gaza in terms of health protection and other emergency recovery sectors, it's the logistics sides – logistics somehow become consistent and facilitated, if there are no unnecessary delays or political impediments to deliveries. Then a lot of this can be fixed in a week.

 

00:46:01:24 - 00:46:02:09

Larry Garber

Amani.

 

00:46:03:06 - 00:47:00:24

Dr. Amani Alsattari

Yeah, and I will add to that, honestly, there's a gap now. And the biggest gap is the continuity and the assurance. And, it's not that nothing exists. Some services exist, some support exists. But women do not feel confident it will still be there next month so that they'll reach it in time.

 

And hospital are stretched now. That means a human part of care like education, counseling, reassurance gets squeezed. Even so, it's very essential. And so bridging hospital care with consistent community based education, as we see in our program, is one of the biggest gaps we are trying to close now.

 

00:47:06:13 - 00:47:51:10

Larry Garber

Without anyone raising a hand. Let me just ask another question for both of you, maybe. Again, we've heard about the pressures on UNWRA, and I'm just curious if you could talk a little bit about I mean, UNWRA still provides, I think, services for large segments of the population, 1200 employees in Gaza.

 

What are you seeing? What are you hearing in terms of their ability to continue providing those services? And what are the concerns that you have of if they are forced to reduce their capabilities?

 

00:47:53:10 - 00:52:05:02

Dr. Musallam

Yeah. In terms of the situation, the most important change that UNWRA has faced during the past two years is the Israeli "no contact" or "cut off" environment that they have made on UNWRA. And it makes things a lot more difficult for them. So the coordination becomes harder for them. The staffing and the scaling becomes really hard.

 

And just stepping back on UNWRA, as many of you know, it has really brought a huge part of the civilian backbone in Gaza. It has been here for a very long time. They have the the staff, they have the human resources, the infrastructure, the physical spaces to be able to coordinate and implement multi massive scale assistance.

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You would expect and you would see different points of service and schools that can be turned into distribution points across Nuseirat and the middle area in southern Gaza and northern Gaza that people can get to with no trouble. And this is some advantage that UNWRA has built up for the past, you know, three decades of their existence, at least in Gaza.

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And you cannot be able to replace that in an instant because of some new political reality.

 

So it's very important to know that UNRWA is not just a service provider. They are a huge part of the civilian structure or services here. And when you turn them down or you try to cut off their operations in terms of logistics and the entry of their staff into Gaza, this means that it makes everybody's job harder when, when the backbone is constrained.

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Just as quick numbers, there are at least I think 11,000 personnel from UNRWA who are now staff and there have been some reduction in the number of hours or the number of days that they that they can be paid for. There are also some massive layoffs of staff in other branches like in Jordan, for example, the last one it was with security department has been laid off by UNWRA and the people there, Palestinian families or staff who have been forced to leave Gaza during the active days of the war, their contracts have been terminated.

 

They now no longer have a livelihood or an income source to depend on when they are in another country with no support system. And I think in the coming few weeks or months, the pressure will heat up and will increase on UNRWA and this will translate into more families in Gaza and also in other areas who will not be helped, and also staff members who just want to do a great job providing social services or health services or education services, are now going to have to worry constantly about their future.

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11,000 people would worry about their future. Add that to many, many youth who have not had one single time in their lives to have employment. You can see how this is going to be really hard for everybody. Even with UNRWA or not.

 

00:52:07:08 - 00:52:37:11

Larry Garber

Coming to the end of the program. Let me ask Musallam to maybe try and end on a more positive note in terms of the vision that you have for a couple of the aspects of the UFDA programs. Specifically, I'll ask you to talk about the telemedicine program. You know, where would you like to see that go and what needs is it filling and what do you need to make it happen?

 

00:52:39:02 - 00:56:26:10

Dr. Musallam

Yes, I think we need to – as the logo we are using and the embodiment of values in that we do – is that we want to be able to build dignity based support and civilian systems in Gaza to power the relief, the care and recovery for the displaced Palestinians in Gaza. We want to be able to build up our capacity and to be able to design and implement and manage our programs by ourselves as Palestinians who have been through this.

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As communities affected, we want to be able to empower our communities who are deeply and harshly affected by this war, to be the ones who will lead their relief and recovery efforts. That's a very important principle in our work.

 

We also want to be able to get the support of international partners or sponsors who believe that Gaza's recovery is part of everybody's stability and security in the region.

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It's also answering to everybody's interest in a stable, even though that's very difficult to achieve, a stable and safe region.

 

And what do we actually want to be able do in the future? We want people to understand that they have to fund and sponsor support programs that are actually useful, things that people will be not only be recovered or relieved by having, but also will be seen, seen full by their identity manifested in those activities.

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For example, the community learning sites. We operate in Nuseirat and Khan Yunis. We have about 200 to 300 children who are now receiving education from people they identify as their their neighbors in the displacement camps. So this will be something that will contribute to their sense of normalcy and empowerment across all of our programs, and you can read about this on our website.

 

We want to be able to help with specific patient groups. Gaza's most forgotten cancer and chronic disease patients who need to be consulted with specialist advice that they don't usually have in Gaza because of the shortage of physicians, and also the medication coordination and follow up.

 

We want to be also helping our children with restoring their education and providing them spaces with that in which they can play and feel normal again.

 

We want to also provide mental health, not just as a separate service, but as an integrated service across all our programs. And the same thing applies for children, for women and newborns.

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So I think the basic summary is that we want to be supported by international partners and donors in order to allow the civilian Palestinian system to be set up in Gaza in which the communities really help themselves toward their recovery and relief.

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00:56:26:10 - 00:57:26:11

Larry Garber

Right. So in the good news category, Tom Warrick has posted in the in the chat that the Israeli Supreme Court issued today a ruling that will allow the NGOs to continue working, at least for the time being, the international NGOs. I haven't read the whole article. I'm not sure if Tom has, but at least it's good news, you know, in the immediate term.

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And Amani, I'm going to ask you, although Karen Tordjman didn't pose this as a question, I'm going to frame it as a question and give you a chance to comment. She says, "I'm an Israeli M.D. and I'm amazed at the serene tone of Musallam and Amani. I would shout and shriek if I were them."

 

And so maybe if you could just comment on, you know, just how do you maintain, you know, this, you know, very positive and serene outlook given all the horrors that you're describing around you?

 

00:57:28:11 - 00:58:46:08

Dr. Amani Saleh

Oh, thank you, Karen, for saying that. I really appreciate that. But honestly, it's not that we don't feel like shouting sometimes. We are human. And I was working in the emergency department in the war for two years. We get exhausted, overwhelming, angry and heartbroken. All of it.

 

But when you work in this environment every single day, you realize that staying calm isn't about being serene. It's about the survival and about the protecting the people in front of you.

 

Our patients are already terrified. If we lose our balance, they lose theirs too. So we came to the calm, and it wasn't because things are okay. It's because they are not. And someone in the room has to stay steady. That's the doctor. And maybe medicine teaches us that – no matter where I am, no matter where we are from.

 

00:58:46:22 - 00:59:45:15

Larry Garber

Thank you very much, Amani. It's a great way to end the session. I want to thank both of you again for taking the time to share with us your impressions and doing it in the manner that you have. I think it's been incredibly informative for all of us, and I don't want to keep you any longer from being able to have your iftar this evening.

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And we'll look forward to organizing a future session, hopefully once the National Committee is on the ground that we can talk about some of the relationships that are being established between civil society organizations like UFDA and this new technocratic committee that will be on the ground. Have a great weekend, everyone, and let's hope and pray that the situation in Gaza improves quickly.

 

00:59:47:01 - 00:59:49:07

Dr. Amani Alsattari

Thanks, Larry, and thanks, everyone.

 

00:59:50:07 - 00:59:53:13

Dr. Musallam

Thank you, Larry. And thank you, everybody.