0:00

Hello everybody! Just a

0:02

very quick one about Instagram. If

0:04

you're on it, Meta,

0:07

the parent company, is

0:09

reducing the number of political posts

0:11

visible to users on their

0:13

feed. This is a real thing, not a

0:15

hoax. So go to your

0:17

Instagram profile, tap the three

0:19

horizontal lines in the

0:22

top right corner to open

0:24

the settings tab, scroll

0:26

down to what you see, click

0:29

on content preferences, open

0:31

political content and

0:33

turn on don't limit political

0:35

content. That's an option, otherwise

0:37

you won't see almost anything

0:39

we post because we are

0:41

deemed political. Please

0:43

do that now or you won't even see

0:46

the posts about our shows, our fun things.

0:48

So if you want to see guilty feminist content and know

0:50

when we're coming to a place near you releasing

0:53

a new podcast, do it now. Hello

1:16

guilty feminists, this is Deborah and

1:18

we are having a short emergency

1:21

episode with Melanie Ward, the CEO

1:23

of MAP, that's Medical Aid for

1:26

Palestinians. Melanie has just

1:28

been in Gaza and

1:31

she messaged me and said, look, I just

1:33

really need to update you about the situation

1:35

there. Melanie, thank you so

1:38

much for joining us. Could you give us an update

1:40

please? Sure, yeah, it's

1:42

good to be with you. As

1:45

a guilty feminist listener myself, it's nice

1:47

to have a chance to tell everybody

1:49

about what

1:52

I saw and heard and witnessed

1:54

in Gaza last week. So I was in Gaza

1:56

for a few days last week and I'm, I'm

1:58

very happy to be here. I'm very happy to be

2:00

here. I have to say the scale of the

2:02

humanitarian disaster on the ground is utterly

2:05

horrifying and as

2:07

somebody who has followed the detail

2:09

of what's happening in Gaza every

2:12

day for the last

2:14

six months, who

2:17

knows all of the statistics

2:20

about what's being done to people, 110,000 people killed

2:23

and injured so far.

2:25

Famine conditions, 110,000 people

2:28

killed and injured. Famine conditions

2:30

sitting in the north,

2:33

more than a million people crowding into the city

2:35

of Rafah. You know, I talk to my

2:37

staff on the ground there every day but seeing it

2:39

for myself is everything I expected

2:42

and a million times worse all at

2:44

the same time. So I

2:46

can tell you a bit about what happened, you

2:48

know, what do you see on the ground, what

2:50

is it like? I arrived

2:52

through Rafah Crossing which is in the

2:54

south of Gaza, we travelled through the

2:57

sign I put into in Egypt to get there and

3:00

honestly as I say there are now

3:02

more than a million people crowded into

3:04

Rafah which is not a big city

3:06

in Gaza but what's happened

3:08

is people have,

3:11

they're literally fleeing the Israeli military

3:13

so they are as close to the sea

3:15

as they can get because people

3:17

are literally on the beach because they're trapped

3:19

between the sea on one hand on the

3:21

west and then on the east

3:24

the Israeli military, a hostile

3:26

military that is obviously on trial at

3:28

the world's highest court for the potential

3:30

genocide of the population there. So people

3:32

have literally squeezed themselves

3:35

into the west of the territory and

3:38

everywhere you go there

3:40

are tens of thousands of

3:42

tents, some of them are proper tents but most

3:45

of them are flimsy makeshift shelters that people have

3:47

made, finding pieces of plastic, anything

3:49

they can and stretch to over wood to

3:51

try to make shelters and the tents are

3:53

everywhere as far as you can see they're

3:55

on all of the pavements, they're on the

3:58

central reservations and the roads, they are everywhere

4:00

there was a school or a clinic people are

4:02

like spilling out of it and because

4:04

they're trying to find somebody they think might be safer

4:06

so all of those places

4:09

they are they're absolutely crowded in and

4:11

you smell the sewage there

4:13

are links of raw

4:17

human waste everywhere you go and guys you

4:19

can't see smell they are right beside

4:21

the places where people are living they're beside where children

4:23

are you see lots of

4:25

children sitting by the roadside with empty plates

4:27

and sauce pans literally empty plates

4:29

and sauce pans the kids don't have shoes

4:32

and this wasn't the case in

4:34

Gaza people had clothes people are

4:37

selling firewood it's very striking you

4:40

see more people selling firewood than you

4:42

do selling food and that's because like

4:45

people had houses and kitchens and

4:47

cookers and ovens and now they are

4:50

living outside under a piece of plastic sheets and

4:52

cooking on an open fire so what people selling

4:54

wood and we saw it

4:56

was only three ATM functioning now in the

4:58

whole of Gaza and one of

5:00

them is in Rata and so

5:02

I drove through the situation and

5:05

there were people, men hundreds

5:08

of them crowded round kind of climbing over

5:10

each other to try to get to the

5:12

ATM to get some cash and

5:14

then the other thing is what you hear it's an

5:17

act of war zone and so you hear like I

5:19

woke up you woke up to the sound of the

5:22

Israeli Navy firing at you from

5:25

the sea and so

5:27

you hear the battleships firing you hear

5:31

shelling because you can hear the missile be fired

5:33

and then when it lands you hear

5:35

the war planes overhead the fighter jets dropping

5:38

bombs and you see the smoke and you

5:40

hear the drones actually you hear you hear

5:42

the drones overhead before you even get into

5:44

into Gaza and some of those

5:46

are armed so horrible

5:48

and alarming so it's

5:50

an absolutely unmitigated human disaster

6:00

Because that seems even

6:03

more than sanitation or anything

6:05

so important because we've seen

6:07

some horrible images of children

6:09

with extreme malnutrition like

6:12

you'd see in a famine zone but there doesn't

6:14

seem to be any reason for it because there

6:16

is ability to get food

6:18

in but it's

6:20

being blocked. What can we

6:22

do to help get food in? Are there any safe

6:24

routes? Are there any groups that are being allowed to

6:27

get food in now? So you're

6:29

absolutely right. It's not an

6:31

accident that people don't have food. This

6:35

is on purpose, horrifically. People

6:37

are being starved on purpose and we're

6:39

now in famine conditions in the north

6:41

of Gaza. And actually

6:43

in the north, children

6:46

are being starved at the fastest rate the world

6:48

has ever seen. That's how bad the

6:50

data is. The nutritional decline in

6:52

the population to be the technical jargon is the

6:55

fastest the world has ever seen. Kids are being starved

6:57

at the fastest rate we've ever seen. And

7:00

that's because the Israeli

7:02

military won't allow enough food supplies in

7:04

as you approach Gaza. We

7:07

literally drove past queues of hundreds of

7:09

trucks of age that are just

7:11

waiting, not being allowed in. We at MediGlade

7:14

for Palestinians have got eight trucks, actually have

7:16

medical supplies currently in the queue. Another

7:18

15 about to join. And

7:21

it's simply a case of political will because there

7:24

are only two land crossings that they're

7:26

lifting trucks through at the moment. In the

7:28

south, there are none into the north, although they

7:30

say they're going to open one we'll see. And

7:33

because the north is the hardest

7:35

place to get to, that's because

7:37

there's an Israeli checkpoint that runs east

7:40

to west, a place called Wadi Gaza,

7:42

which is about a third of the way down. And

7:44

it's really dangerous to cross that checkpoint. So

7:47

if you're in a humanitarian convoy, the

7:49

majority of them are denied. These really don't get

7:52

permission for the aid to cross from the south

7:54

of Gaza to the north. But

7:56

also in Tuesday while I was there, the UNICEF vehicle,

7:58

which obviously has a lot of power, aid workers

8:00

in it who specialise in shooting child

8:02

malnutrition were shot at by Israeli soldiers. They

8:05

were in an armoured vehicle for their lives

8:07

but this is how dangerous it is. So

8:09

the only solution to any of this is

8:12

political will. That's the only thing that's

8:14

going to put pressure on Israel to allow

8:16

enough to then. What

8:19

do you think we can do to

8:22

create that political will? I

8:24

think that you

8:26

and listeners can contact your

8:29

MPs. Political pressure is the

8:31

only thing that's going to make a difference here. We've

8:33

got a campaign action on the MAP website if

8:36

people want it. Go there www.MAP.org.uk.

8:40

Even better, write an email to your

8:42

MP or make an appointment to

8:44

go and see them at their surgery. Tell

8:47

them how outraged you are, how upset you are.

8:49

There's a general election coming up. The

8:51

politicians care about this and

8:53

all of

8:56

the public polling already shows that people

8:59

in this country actually are far ahead

9:01

of the politicians in understanding that what

9:03

they're seeing is wrong and

9:06

that the deliberate starvation and bombardment of

9:08

a population for more than six months,

9:10

the destruction of the healthcare system, people

9:12

know that that's wrong. The politicians,

9:14

most of them aren't quite got there

9:16

yet. So any pressure. Anyone that anyone

9:19

can do, any emails that

9:21

can be sent, phone calls to offices, this

9:24

does all help. Does MAP have doctors in

9:26

there at the moment but they don't

9:28

have enough equipment? They don't have enough supplies?

9:31

Is that correct? Yeah, that's right. So I

9:33

visited one of the hospitals, Alaxa Hospital in

9:35

Dere Al Bala, where we had MAP doctors,

9:37

including British doctors. And

9:40

there's not enough equipment because if I

9:42

mentioned the situation with aid supplies, they just won't

9:44

let enough in. To give you an idea of

9:47

it, before this awful

9:49

war, around 500 trucks

9:52

of supplies of different kinds would go into Gaza

9:54

every day. Since this began,

9:56

less than a quarter of that amount of money

9:58

was spent in the United Kingdom. that has

10:00

got in overall and in a

10:02

war you need a lot more so that's how

10:05

much you know we're being deprived of

10:07

what is needed. So in the hospital I went

10:09

to that hospital usually has 170

10:11

beds there were

10:13

700 patients in it so it's

10:15

more than four times capacity. All

10:17

of the local doctors, Palestinian doctors are

10:19

exhausted. I've been working

10:21

through this more for the last six months and

10:24

a lot of the nurses have been

10:26

displaced and the doctors themselves they've all

10:28

fled south to try to seek

10:31

safety in Raffa for now. So they're

10:33

completely overwhelmed, they're exhausted,

10:36

there's not enough supplies.

10:38

The situation in the hospital honestly every I've

10:40

never seen anything like it every piece

10:43

of space as soon as you go into

10:45

the hospital grounds is full of displaced people

10:48

in tents because they think hospitals might be

10:50

safer than everywhere else even though there

10:52

were 36 hospitals in Gaza there is now

10:54

only 10 that are even partially functioning. When

10:58

you go in the first thing I

11:00

saw was a man with both legs amputated this

11:03

is very common unfortunately then

11:05

I saw somebody with an open

11:07

wound this is in the hospital

11:09

reception area right with flies in the wound in

11:13

the waiting areas everywhere it's

11:15

full of patients some of them are in bed some

11:17

of them are on the floors you

11:19

see that there's a drone overhead there's an Israeli drone

11:21

over us the whole time and some of the drones

11:24

are armed so it's very they make a terrible noise

11:26

but also it's very alarming because you don't know what

11:28

they're going to do one minute to the next and

11:32

are you very frightened when you're out there all the

11:34

time for your own life? I

11:39

mean you kind of to some extent I think seriously

11:44

I'm only

11:47

there for a short amount of time and I was

11:49

with my staff map staff we were all Palestinian and

11:51

they left us a video and

11:55

to some extent you have you because

11:59

of course it's to

12:01

be there. It's not a safe place, there's

12:03

nowhere that's safe to go. But you're

12:06

just very aware that you don't really

12:08

have any control over any

12:10

of these things. I've been in Gaza

12:12

before when there was airstrikes before this war

12:15

and you very quickly realise there's not

12:17

very much you can do about

12:20

it. So you just have

12:22

to get on with it. I

12:24

trust that our local

12:26

staff know the situation well.

12:29

We'll do whatever they can to try and keep us all

12:31

safe but as we can see, you know,

12:34

so many Palestinians killed and injured, it's not

12:37

really possible to stay safe.

12:40

So yeah, the hospital was just utterly

12:42

horrifying. There's not enough medical supplies. The

12:44

doctors were all exhausted and

12:46

I went into a children's ward, a

12:49

baby that would usually have three kids in it, had eight

12:51

kids in their carer. To give you

12:53

an example, there was a little girl, she had an arm

12:55

injury from an airstrike, she was screaming in

12:57

pain, she was waiting for surgery. It was

13:01

absolutely soul destroying and completely unnecessary

13:03

for her to be found. So

13:06

many kids and they really need

13:08

to be self real. There are some painkillers but

13:10

not enough because not enough supplies

13:12

are getting through so things tend to run out

13:14

really quickly. And the other thing was also that

13:16

because Israel hasn't switched the water back on yet,

13:18

so sometimes in the ward there's no running water.

13:21

So trying to keep their eye on is very

13:23

difficult. Can I ask, if we

13:25

donate to MAP, you are

13:28

getting supplies in just slowly and

13:30

when you're allowed. And

13:32

this is going to go on for a long time and when

13:34

more things are allowed in, you're going to need a

13:36

big backlog of equipment, of

13:40

supplies, of presumably

13:42

airfares for doctors to get out there

13:44

when it's safer and when more

13:47

people are allowed in. So donations coming in

13:49

steadily to MAP are very welcome, I would

13:51

imagine. Yeah, that's absolutely right. So

13:53

we are able to spend some money

13:55

and we're also busy planning for one day

13:57

in Shiloh and there's a... ceasefire.

14:00

To give you a sense of what we've been able

14:02

to do so far, we've been able

14:06

to send more than seven

14:08

million dollars worth of medical supplies to Gaza

14:10

which have reached hospital. In

14:14

the north of Gaza we have an amazing team there

14:16

and the north is the most difficult place as I

14:18

said earlier. We have a team of staff there we've

14:20

managed to reach more than 60,000 displaced people

14:22

in 31 shelters with

14:25

hygiene supplies, dignity

14:27

kits which are particularly important for women. So

14:29

we have you know

14:31

sanitary pads, clean underwear,

14:35

white, lots of things like that to try

14:38

and stay clean. Imagine living in a displaced

14:40

shelter with you know thousands

14:42

of strangers. Warm clothes, our

14:45

medical teams, we have our first emergency medical

14:48

team is the one that I visited. We

14:50

have a new one going on Monday. We

14:52

have 12 different medical points set up across

14:55

the middle and the south of Gaza and this is just a

14:57

start so I visited one because

15:00

there are no because there's very

15:02

few primary healthcare centers still functioning

15:04

fewer than 25 percent. We

15:06

set up medical points in the middle of

15:08

the they're not even camps but in the

15:10

middle of the areas where displaced people are

15:12

providing primary health care and

15:15

then also it's

15:18

one of the only places where women can get postnatal

15:20

and anti-natal care as well and

15:25

other kinds of sexual and reproductive health

15:27

services and actually the one I visited

15:29

was one by one of our partners which

15:32

is an amazing organization we've worked with

15:34

in Gaza for many years run by

15:36

some absolutely amazing women. Honestly amazing Palestinian

15:39

feminists running this

15:41

big shelter and before

15:43

they used to run a women's health center which I visited

15:45

in calmer times and they were

15:48

amazing so it's supporting those women to help

15:50

others to survive and we've

15:53

also got a water and sanitation expert there

15:55

just now we're scaling up our malnutrition program

15:59

and say we've got other trucks and items in

16:01

the queue to get there so somebody can get in but not

16:03

enough and we need to plan for a massive

16:05

scale up when that becomes possible. All

16:08

right so we need to keep giving to MAP

16:10

as and when we can and also to contact

16:13

RNP and say look please at

16:15

least let aid in like if

16:17

you're bombing people and you're turning their

16:19

water off and you're please just at

16:21

least let foreign aid in but

16:25

you know at some point clearly this has

16:27

to end and they will and at

16:29

that point we're going to need so much

16:32

backlog aid so it's the

16:34

time to give is steady and often now

16:37

what you can. Thank you so

16:39

much Melanie is there anything else you came to

16:41

say that you didn't get to say? I

16:44

think just to say that

16:46

there's so much racism that's inherent in the

16:48

way that people politicians

16:52

the world treats Palestinians and

16:55

I think if this were anywhere else in the

16:57

world where you had two million

17:00

people crammed into a tiny

17:02

space being constantly

17:04

bombed starved the

17:07

healthcare system systematically dismantled the fabric

17:09

of life being destroyed because it's

17:11

not just healthcare it's schools universities

17:13

mosques you

17:16

had aid being systematically denied into and

17:18

you had aid workers being killed predominantly

17:20

by the way Palestinian aid workers of

17:22

whom more than 200 have been killed.

17:25

If it was anywhere else in the world surely there'd be

17:27

an outcry and our government and

17:29

western governments would be because this is most

17:31

of this is you know against international law they

17:34

would be decrying it they'd be taking action to

17:36

stop it and instead it's

17:38

allowed to continue so this is

17:40

why the actions that listeners can take are

17:42

so important. I found listening

17:45

to you very emotional and

17:47

heartbreaking and also you know

17:52

feel your trauma at

17:54

seeing witnessing first hand the

17:56

trauma of those who

17:58

are completely just

18:03

out of control of this situation. Small

18:07

children who have just lost

18:09

both parents, both legs, have

18:11

nothing to eat, have no painkillers. It

18:14

just seems so horrific. And

18:16

especially like, not

18:18

especially, I mean, it's all horrifying, but the

18:20

famine part of it is so unnecessary to

18:23

not allow food and water in at this

18:25

point and to not allow painkillers in, it

18:27

just seems, or proper operating equipment,

18:29

it just seems so horrendous. So

18:32

we do need to act as

18:34

an international community. I also

18:36

saw some of the aid items that had been

18:39

rejected. You know, the Israelis do

18:41

a security check before

18:43

they let items in,

18:45

which is one of the reasons why they say it

18:47

is so slow. And some of

18:49

the items that had been rejected included an anesthetic

18:53

machine, an x-ray machine,

18:55

I saw bleach that had been rejected, a

18:58

big box of crutches that had

19:01

been rejected, cooking items, even

19:03

sleeping bags that had been rejected because

19:05

they were green or they had a camouflage

19:07

pattern on them, because apparently this is

19:10

a military colour. I

19:14

don't know what

19:16

kind of system denies

19:18

displaced people sleeping bags and

19:21

crutches. So

19:23

it's devastating. It seems absolutely

19:25

extraordinary. I'm

19:27

devastated to hear all this and

19:30

it is a really traumatic situation.

19:32

And for those who are going

19:34

through it every

19:36

day with no choice and no way of

19:38

leaving, it's just unimaginable

19:40

horrors. So it

19:44

feels very, very much

19:46

like there is not much to

19:48

do once you've contacted your MP,

19:51

but keep sharing, share

19:54

with friends and family. A

19:56

lot of stuff is shadowbanned now on Instagram.

19:59

We we're sharing stuff and then basically no

20:01

one can see anything we post anymore or

20:03

very very very few people can see very

20:05

little that we post. Unless

20:08

we pay to boost like a post about a

20:10

show, most people can't see anything we post

20:12

anymore or very little that we post, I think.

20:15

So it's difficult to know what it

20:17

is to do and I

20:20

keep thinking they've got to stop soon and they've

20:23

got to let aid in. At that point we really have

20:25

to be ready to go. So I

20:27

would hope to go out myself at

20:29

that time and do what little I can.

20:34

And Melanie, thank you so much. I

20:36

know MAP is not a political organisation,

20:38

it's an organisation of doctors who just

20:40

want to get out there and who want

20:42

to help people who have had

20:44

limbs blown off or are having a baby

20:47

or any are dying and need

20:49

to die with some dignity. So

20:56

we really appreciate what you're doing and

20:58

we wish to support you in any

21:01

way we can. Thank you so much for

21:03

coming on. Thank you so much for going

21:05

out and telling us your first-hand experiences. We're

21:08

so sorry to hear about all of this but we really appreciate you

21:10

communicating it. Thank

21:12

you so much to you Deborah for consistently caring

21:14

about this story and for doing everything that you

21:17

are and continue to do to support MAP. We

21:20

truly appreciate it and to

21:22

you and to everyone who works with you

21:24

and to all of your listeners. Thank you

21:26

so much. Thank you so much Melanie. You

21:28

can go to map.org.uk if you'd

21:30

like to know more, read more,

21:33

donate. Wherever

21:35

you are in the world, you can write to

21:37

your MP or representative wherever you are. Let

21:40

them know that you think this humanitarian

21:42

disaster is unnecessary and

21:45

pressure needs to be brought to bear that aid

21:47

and doctors can get in. In

21:50

the meantime, please go to map.org.uk and

21:52

you can find MAP on socials as

21:54

well. Give them

21:56

a follow, read about them if you've got any money to spare.

21:58

We can give a direct email. but even

22:01

if it's small, it means

22:03

the world. And then at least you feel you're

22:05

doing something. If you feel very disempowered by this and

22:07

you feel very desperate and you

22:09

think, well, there's nothing I can do,

22:12

MAP is purely about doctors getting to

22:15

patients. That's all it's about. It's not

22:17

political anyway. And it can't be if they're political,

22:19

they wouldn't be able to get in. So

22:22

please go on and donate. If you

22:24

can't afford to donate, do you know someone who could?

22:26

Could you send them a link via

22:28

WhatsApp or tell them with your face? Thank

22:31

you so much, Melanie Ward, CEO

22:34

of MAP. Thank you so much.

22:59

Thank you.