The genocide in Gaza continues unabated as Israel’s bombs fall on civilians. And as Israel blocks critical aid to famished Palestinians, UN Humanitarian Chief Tom Fletcher is calling for an end to the violence, urging member nations just last month to stop this “21st century atrocity.”
He tells Mehdi in a wide-ranging sit-down interview in Washington, DC: “I’ve been to Darfur, I’ve been to Kupiansk on the Ukraine frontlines. I’ve driven up through Syria just after the fall of the Assad regime. I’ve just been in Kandahar, Kabul, Kunduz in Afghanistan. I was in Mandalay just after the earthquake. Nothing was as bad as going to Gaza.”
“It is that smell and sound of death on this scale, and trauma on this scale… you do carry that with you. I think about it every single day. I’ve started therapy myself because I think that it’s important that we find ways to deal with these experiences,” he explains, although notes, “My experience is nothing like someone living in Gaza.”
As Israel’s blockade prevents key aid from reaching Palestinians in the Gaza strip, Fletcher pushes back on the Israeli claim that Hamas is diverting UN aid. “We have the food. It is sat there on the border. We have provisions to fill 9,600 trucks right now – that’s baby food, food, medicine, shelter… It’s just we’re not allowed to get it in. Israel won’t let us move that food through at the scale we need to.”
Fletcher did not go as far as calling the crisis a genocide, noting that he would rather leave it up to the International Court of Justice to make a proper determination. However, he calls the situation in Gaza “an atrocity,” adding, “We are seeing levels of starvation which are completely avoidable, given that we have food there to go.”
“We are sitting at the killing of civilians on an extraordinary scale,” he warns.
Paid subscribers can watch the full interview above to hear Fletcher’s response to Israel’s accusations of antisemitism against advocates for Gaza – including the UN – and also his discussion with Mehdi on the ongoing genocide and humanitarian crisis in Sudan.
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