Mr. John Whyte:

What keeps my colleagues going is they have no choice; they have to continue to keep going. I guess I draw strength from them because whatever challenges I am facing in my day-to-day life working here remotely from Dublin at the moment, it is nothing compared with my colleagues who are facing starvation, continuous risk of death and loss of relatives, friends, belongings and everything. They keep going because they have no choice and because they also believe they have a duty to support the population. Inasmuch as they have a duty towards the people that they serve, it is really an incredible and humbling attitude they have.

I worked with UNRWA for 12 years and I was inspired to join because of another Irishman I saw on the telly back in 2007. It was an Irish Army guy called John Ging, who was the director of UNRWA in Gaza. I was so impressed with what he had to say about the breaches of international humanitarian law and about what was happening there that it inspired me. I was working in Fatima Mansions at the time, as it was, as part of a regeneration project for ten years.

I went back to university and studied international relations at DCU. I took up an internship with UNRWA in Lebanon because I could not go to Gaza. I was biding my time until I could go to Gaza. I was trying to get there for 16 years and achieved it at the end of 2023. I am not the director; I am the deputy director. It is close enough. I am highly motivated to this issue, as many Irish are. We have always had this national sensitivity. For me, I wanted to go there and help. I never thought I would be there under these circumstances.

I was told before I went that the best people you will ever meet are Gazan staff. They were not wrong. I worked with terrific staff in Lebanon and Syria but the staff in Gaza are something else. They are ordinary like us - they are no different - but it is just the extraordinary situation that they find themselves. None of them are perfect - none of us are - but they really believe so strongly in what they are doing.

It is like an onslaught. This has been going on for generations. It is part of their DNA to keep going, to keep serving and to keep trying. It really is astonishing what they lose and they still turn up to work. Among my staff is a guy of retirement age who is the head of our relief and social services programme. He lives in a tent with his family. He still comes into work every day. They come in because they believe in it. Our chief of education received a bad diagnosis recently but he still comes in to try to manage the remote learning, which we have had to adapt to. Covid taught us it can be done. We have benefited from that and are able to continue to try to deliver it. All the obstacles are in our path, but they get up and they find a workaround.

It is my job to try to support them. We have be a source of hope for them. They look to all of us, not just me, as a source of hope. They have seen many in the world who are just somehow indifferent or oblivious to what is happening, which is obviously deeply painful. There are, however, some who support them. The Irish, they count. For me, it is an obligation. I will continue to do what I can with UNWRA for as long as I can. If I cannot be useful to UNWRA anymore, I will try to find another way to get back in there in the future and see what we can do. As I said earlier, at the end of the day this will end. There will be 2.1 million people left, by and large. Some will leave, but there will be others who will stay. Somebody has to help them. I expect to be part of that for a while anyway.