Kate Newton is the World Food Programme’s Deputy Country Director for Palestine and travelled to Gaza yesterdayMONDEC2 for her first stint in the conflict zone since the crisis erupted last October.
Kate is helping spearhead the United Nations’ organisation’s life-saving support for civilians, which has been backed by £14.25million support from the UK Government since October 2023.
Over 300 aid workers have been killed since 7 October, 2023 – the deadliest conflict by far for those providing humanitarian support.
Brave Kate, from Burley in Wharfedale, near Ilkley, West Yorkshire, told of the emotional toll the crisis has been having on aid workers carrying out life-saving work on the ground.
Kate, 50, said:
I’m under absolutely no illusions about what I am going into having supported our teams on the ground in Gaza since 7 October.
Our offices in Gaza have been destroyed and our staff have been moved multiple times with everyone else up and down the Strip.
We had a guest house which was bombed at the end of August with staff inside but thankfully we have not lost any colleagues yet. We’ve suffered a lot of attacks on our property, our warehouses and our vehicles.
Many of our local staff, if they had the resources to leave, have left. They took a decision it was too dangerous for them and their families to stay.
We’ve been trying to bring more international staff into Gaza, which has its challenges. The staff I liaise with in Gaza have all gradually become really, really traumatised by this crisis.
They do four-week stints. They go in thinking they’ll be able to cope and then you can really see the transformation. You can really tell the difference between the first week, second week, third week, and the fourth week, in how they are behaving and how they are interacting.
There are drones overhead all the time 24/7. Even in the safer areas, where they are staying, they can hear bombing and shooting all day. So no-one really sleeps while they are there.
But while innocent civilians, including women and children, are dying and really suffering, we cannot simply walk away.
Kate’s deployment comes as International Development Anneliese Dodds travelled to the region today MON to announce a further £19million humanitarian funding for Gaza.
This includes £12million to the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the WFP.
The death toll in Gaza has now surpassed 43,000 – with children making up a third of those killed.
WFP has provided emergency food and voucher assistance to over one million people in Gaza. Support includes food parcels and wheat flour to families, hot meals kitchens, and nutrition support to pregnant and breastfeeding mothers and children.
UK Government funding through the WFP for the financial year 23/24 supported over 651,000 people with food assistance through food or cash vouchers.
The UK has pledged to help the WFP to procure a further 4,465 metric tons of fortified wheat flour to help 451,000 severely food insecure people across Gaza for the financial year 24/25.
Two emergency field hospitals run by frontline charity UK-Med and funded by Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) have treated more than 281,000 since January.
The DEC Middle East Humanitarian appeal raised over £32million from the British public, including a £10million aid match pledge from the UK Government.
Kate said:
The UK Government through the FCDO has contributed much to the crisis and I feel it’s important for British people to know that it is making a big difference.
However, the situation on the ground in Gaza remains dire.
Jerusalem-based Kate said:
UN agencies including WFP have saved considerable numbers of lives – but the operation is nowhere where it needs to be. We need to get more aid in.
In October we had managed to move around 5,000 tonnes of food into Gaza – but it should be closer to 25,000 if we are to avert a famine.
My friend told me the sheer horror of life in Gaza. There is no employment, their homes have been destroyed, so many people are just waiting to die.
She said that there were just groups of children walking around. There might be one older child with lots of younger children holding onto their shirt tails in a weird sort of human chain where they were just sort of clinging onto each other for dear life.
She saw loads of children everywhere sifting through rubbish all the time looking for food. She had loads of horror stories of injuries or deaths. I don’t know how people manage to live like that. I really can’t.
Lack of food has seen inflation spiral out of control sparking widespread looting by armed gangs.
Kate explained:
The desperation fuels inflation and profiteering and then you have the ugly side of strong men or gangs who are looting and benefitting.
Aid convoys are regularly attacked and looted and the gangs’ stranglehold is making the aid operation more expensive because of additional security costs.
Our colleagues on the ground are in the privileged position that they have the capacity to afford to buy whatever’s on the market but they were saying that earlier today they could only find two tomatoes. They couldn’t find anything else fresh at all.
A month ago, you could find some fresh fruit, but now a tray of eggs is $25. There was one member of staff telling me that he had paid $11,000 from his savings for a tent for his aunt, who was sleeping rough in Rafah on the southern part of the Strip.
He said, ‘I obviously was desperate to help her, so I paid, but I knew that it’s not a good thing to do because this is a tent provided free’.
It is a very ugly environment and it is very upsetting to think so many people are suffering yet you have criminal gangs adding to the misery by profiteering. We are intensely worried about seeing famine.
Kate’s worried family will miss her over Christmas – but she is determined to help the desperate people of Gaza.
Kate admitted:
It was really hard for me to break the news to my parents and siblings as I know that they will be really worried about me going in.
Do I want to go in? I’m obviously really anxious about it. I know from a mental health perspective colleagues are finding it really difficult so I’m under no illusions that it will be tough.
But I feel I can’t really do the job I do without going in. I think either we all take our turn or then what? Do you walk away?
I was in Syria and in Ukraine but everyone says that this is much worse. The risks are terrifyingly real but I think the only way to handle it is not to be scared. I will follow all the security protocols that are well drummed into us.
There are still almost two million people living there. We cannot just abandon them and leave them to rot in hell.
International Development Minister Anneliese Dodds will attend a humanitarian conference in Cairo today [Monday 2 December], meeting with international partners, to discuss how to urgently alleviate suffering in Gaza, as part of a three-day visit to the region.
The Minister will announce £19 million of funding for Gaza, including £12 million in funding to the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and World Food Programme (WFP). The UK has now committed £99 million to the OPTs this financial year, providing vital services to civilians in Gaza and the West Bank delivered through partner agencies. The UK’s humanitarian programme in Gaza has meant half a million people have received essential healthcare. 284,000 people have improved access to water, sanitation and hygiene services.
To demonstrate the UK’s ongoing commitment to achieving stability in the region and to discuss how to improve economic stability for all Palestinians, Minister Dodds will then travel to the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel.
The Minister will see first-hand the vital work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) at a refugee camp in the West Bank. She will also highlight the £7m of new UK funding that will go to UNRWA’s Flash Humanitarian Appeal for Gaza. It will support the international response to deliver essential services such as food, shelter and healthcare as winter conditions add to the already dire humanitarian situation.
To underline UK support for the Palestinian Authority and their essential political and economic reform agenda, the Minister will meet with Palestinian Prime Minister, H.E. Dr. Mohammad Mustafa, and Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, H.E. Dr. Wael Zakout.
Development Minister Anneliese Dodds said:
The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. Gazans are in desperate need of food, and shelter with the onset of winter. The Cairo conference will be an opportunity to get leading voices in one room and put forward real-world solutions to the humanitarian crisis.
The UK is committed to supporting the region’s most vulnerable communities, pledging additional funding for UNRWA, and to supporting the Palestinian Authority reforms.
Israel must immediately act to ensure unimpeded aid access to Gaza. I will meet counterparts both in Israel and the OPTs to discuss the need to remove these impediments, bring about a ceasefire, free the hostages and find a lasting solution to the conflict.
The Minister will also confirm the UK has provided £6 million each to the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the Office for Coordinated Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) pooled humanitarian fund. This has gone towards lifesaving health, food, water, sanitation and protection services for Palestinians.
This year the UK contribution to WFP will enable it to procure 4,465 metric tons of fortified wheat flour, sufficient to cover the needs of more than 451,000 severely food insecure people across Gaza for one month.
Whilst in the OPTs, the Minister will also visit a community in Area C of the West Bank that is subject to settler violence and is at risk of demolition and displacement.
Minister Dodds will then arrive in Israel, holding meetings with Israeli representatives. She will call on Israel to remove impediments to getting aid into Gaza and discuss finding a lasting resolution to the conflict.
The Minister will also meet the families of UK and UK-linked hostages in Israel and will reiterate that the UK continues to exercise every possible diplomatic lever to see the hostages immediately and unconditionally released.
Concluding the visit, the Minister will highlight that it is in the long-term interests of the Israelis, Palestinians and the wider region to agree to a ceasefire deal urgently and bring this devastating conflict to an end.
