Andrew Saberton, Deputy Executive Director for Management, on his recent visit to Gaza and the West Bank.
“In Gaza I was not fully prepared for what I saw, one can’t be,” a UN top official for population said, describing the destruction across the enclave as “the set of a dystopian film.”
Speaking to reporters at UN Headquarters in New York, Andrew Saberton, Deputy Executive Director for Management at UNFPA said, “There is no other way to put it, Gaza has been flattened mile upon mile with rubble and dust, with few buildings left intact. This is not collateral damage. And I cannot unsee what I have seen.”
He said many women in Gaza “lost everything, their family members, their homes, their colleges and their jobs,” adding that “women cannot even access the most basic personal hygiene supplies when they are menstruating.”
The UN official also said, “Across Gaza, as you well know, one in four people is starving. That includes 11,500 pregnant women for whom starvation is particularly catastrophic for both mother and the newborn. Premature and low birth weight babies now make up around 70 per cent of newborns, and one in three pregnancies is regarded as high risk.”
Maternal health services have collapsed under the strain of conflict. “Ninety-four per cent of hospitals in Gaza are damaged or destroyed,” Saberton said. “Maternal deaths are on the rise because the drugs that could save mothers are no longer available, and multiple newborns are often crammed into one incubator due to a lack of fuel and equipment.”
He noted that UNFPA recently managed to deliver some medical supplies into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing. “We have been distributing medical supplies and equipment, including incubators, delivery beds and fetal-monitoring machines,” he said, “now that we have more freedom of movement.”
However, Saberton cautioned that “the trickle of aid being allowed to enter Gaza after the ceasefire is nowhere near enough.” He said UNFPA has “much more assistance on all the crossings ready to enter, including more incubators, more heart monitors, beds and other supplies for safe births, as well as much needed hygiene items.”
He urged the full opening of all crossings to ensure “safe and sustained humanitarian access to bring aid to all women and girls in Gaza, from the north to the south.”
Saberton also warned of the long-term psychological toll. “There will be this period of elation when you know, ‘the ceasefire, the ceasefire holds,’ and then it may come this overwhelming downside when people take a look at their lives and realize they've lost everything,” he said. “That may actually lead to a kind of a bigger issue psychologically that we'll need to address.”
Saberton concluded with a call for action: “For the last two years many countries, nations, people have been saying, ‘what can I do? I want to do something.’ Now is the time.”
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