Racing to prevent famine in Gaza – Matthew Hollingworth (WFP) interviewed by Melissa Fleming

 

19 July 2024

 

 

 

“Prior to this war [in Gaza], people had dreams. Today people’s dreams are about survival.”

Matthew Hollingworth has worked in conflict zones around the world, from Ukraine to South Sudan and Syria. Previously in charge of the World Food Programme’s (WFP) emergency operations in the West Bank and Gaza, Matthew was responsible for delivering life-saving aid to desperate people.

“People ask me every single day when I’m in Gaza: “When will the bombs stop? When will the fighting stop? When will they stop blowing things up? When can I go home?” We don’t have the answers. But we do know that that is what’s needed.”

WFP delivers food relief to more than 120 countries across the world suffering the impacts of conflicts, disasters and climate change. In this episode (recorded on 21 June 2024), Matthew Hollingworth reflects on his daily struggle to prevent famine in Gaza, on the apocalyptic scale of the destruction there, and on the morale boost he gets from working with extraordinary colleagues on the ground.

About the host

Melissa Fleming

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Transcript 

(Excerpts of the interview transcripts focusing on Gaza is reproduced below)

 

Melissa Fleming 00:00

Imagine being responsible for delivering food to desperate people in Gaza.

 

Matthew Hollingworth 00:06

People ask me every single day when I’m in Gaza: ‘When will the bombs stop? When will the fighting stop? When will they stop blowing things up? When can I go home?’ We don’t have the answers. But we do know that that is what’s needed.

 

Melissa Fleming 00:31

My guest this week is Matthew Hollingworth, the World Food Programme’s Representative and Country Director in Ukraine. But for the past few months, he’s been based in Jerusalem leading WFP emergency operations in the West Bank and Gaza. From the United Nations, I’m Melissa Fleming. This is Awake at Night. Welcome, Matthew.

 

Matthew Hollingworth 01:03

Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be here.

 

Melissa Fleming 01:06

Where are you speaking to me from?

 

Matthew Hollingworth 01:09

Today I’m in Jerusalem. I came from Gaza yesterday having had my last full week with the team in Deir El Balah. But now I’m back safely in Jerusalem.

 

Melissa Fleming 01:23

I know that you’ve been to Gaza several times and you just came out yesterday. What does it look like now? And maybe you can give a comparison to the first time you entered Gaza.

 

Matthew Hollingworth 01:36

I mean, I’ve spent, what five months here now. And of those five months, I spent 50 days inside Gaza and through the winter and now into summer. You know, it’s very hard to explain it and do justice to the awesomeness of the destruction that you see in Gaza. And there’s not a neighbourhood in Gaza City, in particular Jabalia as well. There’s not a neighbourhood that is not affected. Every tarmac road has been torn up. Every sewage pipe has been broken. Every building has been damaged or completely destroyed. You know, it is Armageddon. It just looks completely destroyed. And there’s the stench that anybody that’s ever worked in a war zone will recognize in the description. It smells of rotting garbage and rubbish and sewage, and the dust and the heat doesn’t make it any easier. So, it really is a frighteningly inhumane place to be.

 

Melissa Fleming 02:56

What does this translate into for people? You know, we’ve seen these images of just the vast destruction that you just described. What are conditions like for people?

 

Matthew Hollingworth 03:08

I mean, if you look at what the people who are living in Rafah have gone through in the past, you know, six weeks. They moved from a place that they believed was safe that they moved to in, you know, November, December, January. They were already in crowded conditions in Rafah. But they had moved there predominantly in communities. So, people from Beit Hanoun, people from Jabalia, people from Gaza City, in the suburbs of Gaza City, people from Khan Yunis tried to stick together. But what happened in this sort of mass panicked exodus after the incursion started on the 7th of May, people got mixed up and they’re no longer with the communities that they originally moved with.

And there’s 1.2 million people living in a tiny, tiny area. So, it’s incredibly congested. You know, densely populated with insufficient access to latrines, insufficient access to water. You know, nobody receives 15 clean litres of water a day. And people get a fraction of that. People are living right up to the sea on the seashore. You know, so it’s sticky and, you know, it’s hot. And it’s uncomfortable. It really is horrible. It’s a, you know, the worst example of an insanitary situation for children, vulnerable people, older people. You know, people with already, you know, existing illnesses to live through. And they are… You know, they are suffering every day because of it.

And you add to that the trauma. I mean, most people have been displaced multiple times at this stage. You know, people did move from the very north of the strip, and each time they moved further south, or each time they moved closer to the coast, they believed they were going somewhere safer. And then they’re moving again. And every time people move, of course, they become a little bit weaker, a little bit more vulnerable. Their resilience drops. You can’t take everything with you each time. You don’t always have the money to pay for the donkey cart to take all of your belongings each time. And every time you do it, you take less. You know, you’ve got a lot of confused, traumatized, people who… Everything starts again. And in the most, as I said, horrible circumstances and in an incredibly difficult environment to live healthily.

 

Melissa Fleming 06:06

Add to the trauma. I mean, so many people have lost family members in the bombs.

 

Matthew Hollingworth 06:13

37,000 people and counting have lost their lives. Treble that – having lost limbs and being physically damaged because of the conflict. But then there’s that mental suffering and damage as well, which is everywhere, and affects everybody.

 

Melissa Fleming 06:34

And you’ve been in war zones. I mean, we’ll talk about Ukraine in a minute. In South Sudan. You’ve been in Syria. But have you ever seen anything like what you’re witnessing in Gaza?

 

Matthew Hollingworth 06:49

I’ve certainly experienced aspects of this in different places around the world in Homs and, you know, in different parts of Kharkivskaya in Ukraine. But the difference in places like Ukraine, places like Syria, even Afghanistan and the Sudan, South Sudan, people had space to move into either within the country they were from – so, they were displaced but into space – or crossing borders to become refugees and seek shelter and safety outside. The thing that Gazans don’t have that Ukrainians had, Syrians had, Sudanese have, is the ability to genuinely cross borders and go somewhere else. It’s as if Palestinians, Gazans in particular, are the only people in the world that can’t be refugees, that no one’s allowing to be refugees. So, they are being pushed around this tiny strip of land, you know, given orders by cell phone or by leaflet drop, ‘Evacuate by 18:00 tonight!’ And they can’t go anywhere that they can be certain is going to be that safe. So, it’s… You know, that makes it very different for me.

The other side of all of that, of course, is that people get up and do amazing things every day. You know, our staff, other organizations, NGO staff, medical personnel, nurses, doctors showing up to work every day. Not getting paid at this point, serving fellow Gazans and showing just, you know, immense strength, character and fortitude. You know, and again, it’s inspiring because of that. But it’s just… The thing that’s so different is it’s this tiny, tiny area that people have been pushed into an even smaller, geographic area to seek shelter and to run away from warfare.

 

Melissa Fleming 09:11

Some would say that the difference is also that more humanitarians have died in this war than in any other. I know that your colleagues have also been under attack. Your convoys have also been under attack. I mean, what is that like for you being in charge?

 

Matthew Hollingworth 09:37

I mean, there’s no question that Gaza is one of if not the most dangerous places to serve today anywhere in the world. We’ve lost more than 200 aid workers during, you know, this crisis, this war. That threat is always there and everybody’s aware. And obviously, we do everything in our power to minimize those threats and mitigate the chance of them happening again. But it is an incredibly difficult place. It’s very small and there’s a war taking place. And, you know, despite the idea that, you know, 21st century warfare is precise and targeted, it isn’t.

 

Melissa Fleming 10:26

What does this war sound like when you drive around?

 

Matthew Hollingworth 10:32

I mean, sleeping, waking, working, it’s a cacophony of noise all the time. You’re always hearing blasts of some form or another. You know, you’ve got staff members that are becoming so knowledgeable they can tell the difference between, you know, tank fire and mortar fire and incoming and outgoing and, you know, tunnels been blown up. And if it’s an AK 47 or if it’s another, you know, like machine gun. The drones are constant. They call them “the mosquitoes of Gaza”.

And a lot of small arms fire as well because it’s become a place where, you know, the value of life is a little bit less than it once was. I mean, everybody’s seen so much death that people fly off the handle at small issues. You know, family quarrels that could once be dealt with sitting under a tree with a cup of coffee, and perhaps a few mature members of the families to deal with it, now end up with, you know, gunfire into the air and, you know, crossing those red lines that never would have been crossed before. Constant noise that doesn’t go away. And none of it is peaceful.

 

 

Melissa Fleming 11:53

And what about the sounds of what you hear when you go and speak to people, ordinary Gazans who you’re serving, who you’re feeding?

 

Matthew Hollingworth 12:05

A lot of people we talk to are extraordinarily angry. And we rightly or wrongly, but it’s just the reality, we are the face of the international community because we’re there. We’re present. And you know that anger, that fury that the world hasn’t stopped this from happening to them. And this is a war on Gazans. And Gazans suffer every day, and they don’t understand why we haven’t been able to stop it. And because we’re the face of the international community, we take on that on a frequent basis.

So, I meet a lot of angry people. Once we start to talk, once we start to talk people down a little bit, listen to what they have to say, listen to their concerns. Demonstrate that we are more than sympathetic. We’re empathetic. We understand. We’re here. We’re there with them, which is different from what they hear mostly on the news. So, people do open up and then you hear the stories of suffering that people have gone through. As you rightly said, there’s not a family that hasn’t lost a loved one or hasn’t, you know, lost a community. Everybody’s lost homes, livelihoods, you know, possessions, all easily forgotten and possibly replaced in the future.

But what… I think the thing that is going to be much more complicated moving forward is that it’s also a loss of normalcy. It’s a loss of the social fabric that people took for granted. Gaza was actually prior to this war it was a quite a nice place. You know, perhaps a little bit of a gilded cage in some ways. But if you earned a living, you could afford to take your children to, you know, have a soda pop on the beach in the sunny weather. And a lot of poverty, obviously, a lot of issues being part of Palestine and having restrictions on where you could work and when you could travel, etc. but you know, families enjoyed life. Kids would go to school, would get pretty decent education. They could go to university. There are jobs, there’s international organizations. There was a vibrant retail sector. There is a… You know, there was a way to look forward, not perhaps as great as it should be, but nevertheless people had dreams. Today people’s dreams are about survival. And that’s, you know, that’s always very sad to hear.

 

Melissa Fleming 14:56

I believe also I’ve heard Gaza described as a source of food, not just for people in Gaza, but actually, you know, they exported to Israel strawberries and all kinds of fruit. I mean, what is the food situation now in Gaza?

 

Matthew Hollingworth 15:18

I mean, I… In January and February of this year, trying to move assistance around the strip was incredibly difficult, primarily because of a lack of access, a lack of political will to give us the agreement to move into areas where there was active fighting. So, in particular, Gaza City in the north. In the past, in the north, in particular in the past 6 to 8 weeks with the opening first of Erez checkpoint and then the opening of Zikim came after the incursion started in May, we’ve started to have consistent, regular, you know, trucks going in with food assistance with other forms of aid. 60, 70 trucks every single day. And you start to see that, and we started to see big changes in Gaza in the north.

 

[In] March I would go, and you’d see people shuffling, and people were tired, and they were hungry, and everybody was just trying to find something to take home for their family. Now you go to parts of Jabalia, and you go to parts of Gaza City, which are relatively stable, and the place is bustling with people. And there is a little bit more hope. Food aid at least has gotten in. And that imminent famine that we were so frightened about in March is being slowly but surely, you know, pushed back and rolled back. Not to say things are nice, not to say things are done, not to say it isn’t extraordinarily fragile. And we could go back to that if these pipelines, if these corridors, supply lines closed again. But there is a remarkable difference in the north.

What they do need and what they’re not getting is access to fresh food, fresh produce. The farming areas were typically around the border areas. A lot of the farming areas have been chewed up by tanks and lost. You know, orchards that took decades to grow, now pulled up and gone. And a lot of the farming area in the north is just not accessible. And so, there’s not enough things that Gazans used to take for granted – tomatoes and cucumbers and courgettes and, you know, eggplants and oranges and lemons. I mean, things that people always had in abundance because they grew that and that doesn’t exist right now. And they don’t have milk products. They don’t have cheese. They don’t have, you know, easy access to eggs. So, people in the north are dependent on aid. But I do… It’s important to recognize that that picture has changed, and the situation is not as dire as it once was.

The frightening thing is that now what we see is in the south and the middle areas of Gaza. Because the Kerem Shalom, Rafah crossings were closed when the incursion started, and we had an extended period where we just simply couldn’t get anything through. And now more lately because of the law-and-order issues, the looting that we’re facing, the violence that we’re facing close to the crossings, you know, aid has sort of slowed down to a trickle. So that has to change. It has to change very soon.

Melissa Fleming 19:09

What is a day in the life like for a WFP truck convoy or aid worker trying to get the food that has maybe crossed over the border but has to go further and into the communities where people are so hungry and so desperate?

 

Matthew Hollingworth 19:28

Yeah. I mean, it’s… I can tell you it’s a very long day. Most of our teams are all now centred out of Deir al Balah in the middle area for safety reasons. Our facilities in Gaza City were destroyed very early on in the conflict. Our facility in Rafah is in an evacuation zone that we had to move from when the Rafah incursion started. So, we’re all centred out of Deir al Balah, which is the central city of Gaza.

So, they’re getting up at 6 a.m. First meeting is at 7:00 to coordinate the day’s work, and then we start attempting to move around the strip to receive goods. That all should start as early as possible every day. However, for every 12 to 14-hour day, perhaps most of the day – 10 or 11 hours – is actually spent waiting. You are moving with a convoy and then stopped not necessarily at a checkpoint but a waiting area until you receive a green light for a safe movement forward. So, a lot of time is spent coordinating telephone, radio, sat phone, depending on what works, with the Israeli authorities to make sure that the next part of your trip is cleared.

And so, it’s very normal for people to spend 10, 11, 12 hours in a vehicle to actually achieve an hour’s work on the ground somewhere and then turn around and go back. And it does mean going through checkpoints and front lines and spending, you know, quite some time to make sure that we can navigate those difficulties. You know, I have around 20 national staff working every day doing just that. And another roughly 20 international staff doing that every single day. Nobody’s ever having a day off. I mean, we joke in Gaza that every day is Wednesday. Because you’ve no idea what day of the week it is and there’s no weekends.

 

Melissa Fleming 21:49

I’m just wondering how your colleagues cope. Like, what is it like for them? Where do they live? Where do they sleep? How do they…? Do they ever get a break?

 

Matthew Hollingworth 21:59

I mean, it’s an extraordinarily difficult place to work. The environment is harsh. You know, austere doesn’t begin to explain it. But because people are working so many hours a day, because we’re always charged and, you know, the adrenaline’s always pumping, actually the sort of the morale is extraordinarily high across the team. We look after each other. We support one another. You know, we have nationals and internationals that live and work in very close quarters. And, you know, we have the absolute pleasure of having our national staff families close by. So, there’s something extraordinary coming back at 10 p.m. tired and cold and, you know, feeling a little bit down from a tough day of failing typically to get things through different areas, to be greeted by a smiling child who wants to give you a big hug and welcome you back. And the family of a staff has cooked something that they want to share and, you know, break bread with people and, you know, decompress after a really tough day. So, it’s an incredibly close-knit team.

One of the biggest concerns we have for staff welfare and team welfare is, of course, our Gazan colleagues don’t get to leave. Right? Just as I was saying earlier that Gazans, you know, find it extraordinarily hard just to claim asylum, just to be able to leave as a refugee. You actually find that, you know, many colleagues just they couldn’t leave if they wanted to. They don’t have the permissions to travel. And so, you know, it’s incumbent on us, particularly internationals that can travel out from time to time, to get some respite, to get some rest, that we recognize our national colleagues don’t. And so, it’s really important that we help them to find ways to relax. You know, to read, to spend time with their kids, to exercise, to have a lie in from time to time.

 

Melissa Fleming 24:20

Indeed, there is a UN family in Gaza. UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] has been called the backbone of the humanitarian system. There’s UNICEF [United Nations Children’s Fund]. How do you work together with the other UN agencies – WHO [World Health Organization].

 

Matthew Hollingworth 24:35

UNRWA has been a life saver for all of us. You know, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. My very first employer in the UN more than a quarter of a century ago. So, I have a soft spot for them. And they have… They’ve always been incredibly helpful to other agencies, funds, programmes. So, you know, they are absolutely critical. I without question support the statement that they are the backbone of the UN inside Gaza today.

 

Melissa Fleming 25:14

I was going to ask you because I did read that it was your first job in the humanitarian system working for UNRWA 25 years ago, I guess. And that was also in Gaza?

 

Matthew Hollingworth 25:25

That was in Gaza in the field office the year after Peter Hansen moved the headquarters from Vienna to Gaza in those days. So that’s where UNRWA’s headquarters were. And I was field office staff as an intern. It’s a bit longer than 25 years ago now. But, you know, it makes me sound very old, much older than I feel. But it was… Yeah, a great experience for me and set me on a path, well helped set me on a path that ultimately brought me to the World Food Programme. So, very grateful for it. And, I mean, tinged with a lot of sadness because what you saw was the potential post Oslo during a time of peace in Gaza. What I saw in the 90s, in the late 90s, obviously appears lifetimes away today.

 

Melissa Fleming 26:21

So, what needs to happen now?

 

Matthew Hollingworth 26:23

Ceasefire. We need peace. People ask me every single day when I’m in Gaza: ‘When will the bombs stop? When will fighting stop? When will they stop blowing things up? When can I go home?’ We don’t have the answers, and we don’t know those things. But we do know that that is what’s needed, and the guns have to stop firing. There has to be compromise. There has to be solutions. Hostages must be released. And then again, you know, when I look at the destruction and the level of destruction everywhere. And I also think about those people being held in, you know, basements or tunnels or buildings. It must be petrifying for them all these many months later, not to mention their families at home.

So, this… We’ve got to get back to a point where there’s a realization that, you know, this fighting is never going to succeed in bringing peace unless it stops now. That’s the very first step. You know, I think nobody without compassion, empathy for all sides, can, you know, imagine that we’re in a situation now because of those horrible actions of the 7th of October. But two wrongs don’t make a right, and it needs to stop. It needs to end. Too many people are suffering and have suffered. Yeah, if we’re going to help build a stable, peaceful, productive society or rebuild it, it’s got to start as soon as possible.

 

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