Gaza still starved of medicines and food, says UN official

Conflict-ravaged Gaza is still being starved of food and medicines but its children offer fresh hope for the future, an Irish UN official said today.

Portlaoise native John Ging told an Oireachtas Committee that the Palestinian territory still faces massive humanitarian challenges but remained optimistic amid adversity.

Mr Ging is head of the United Nations Relief & Works Agency which distributes aid to local people and runs schools for 200,000 children in Gaza.

He featured prominently in media reports during a 22-day conflict between Israel and Gaza in December and January which killed at least 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.

The ex Army officer, who has worked in Rwanda and Tanzania in the past, said: “We cannot even contemplate reconstructing Gaza and the devastation because there is inadequate access to humanitarian supplies such as food, medicine, blankets and clothes.

“There has been no easing on the restrictions on Gaza and therefore the people languish in the rubble of their despair,” he told the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr Ging said he regretted that the rockets continued to be fired from Gaza into Israeli villages.

He added: “This is all the product of collective political failure.”

Irish Aid gave €8.6m to Palestinians in 2008 and contributed €2.5m to the international reconstruction plan.

The official said half of Gaza’s 1.5 million population were children and they offered new hope for the future.

“We want them to grow up to be decent, civilised people with a mindset to be tolerant and to have the capacity to have a livelihood rather than rely on handouts.

“But they are growing up and increasingly being influenced by the environment around them.

“The overwhelming and pervasive sense of injustice that they experience on a daily basis – it is having an effect.

“We will do our best. We will redouble our efforts to teach human rights but we will not succeed unless the circumstances on the ground change.”

Mr Ging also praised the courage of politicians who had “broken through the taboo that it is too dangerous to come to Gaza.”

“There is a civilian population in peril and in desperate need of protection by effective political action,” he told the committee.

“The situation is very bleak and the prospect is even more bleak if we stay on the same course.”

Committee chairman Michael Woods said Mr Ging had become a household name in Ireland for his brave stance during the Israeli onslaught on Gaza.

“You have shown extraordinary courage and commitment in the midst of this conflict in your humanitarian work and constant efforts for an acceptable political settlement.

“People have become very proud of the work you have done whilst realising the dangers.”

The Foreign Affairs Committee is due to travel to Gaza on an Oireachtas fact-finding mission in coming weeks.

Fianna Fáil TD Chris Andrews said he visited Gaza in November and added: “The families are ordinary people like you would meet anywhere and who just want to get on with their daily lives.”

Former Government Chief Whip Tom Kitt praised Mr Ging for his leadership in Gaza and for his track record of service as an NGO official in other countries.

Mr Ging also visited Belfast and Derry during his trip to Ireland.