Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 23 September 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade
Engagement with UNRWA Deputy Director John Whyte
2:00 am
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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I advise members of the constitutional requirements that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a member to participate where they are not adhering to this constitutional requirement. A member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I ask any member participating via MS Teams that, prior to making their contribution to the meeting, they confirm they are on the grounds of the Leinster House campus.
Members are also reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks and it is imperative that they comply with any such direction.
As the witness is probably aware, the committee will publish the opening statement on its website following the meeting. The witness is reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that he should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if his statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, he will be directed to discontinue his remarks and it is imperative that he comply with any such direction.
The first item on the agenda is engagement with UNRWA. I welcome the deputy director of UNRWA, Mr. John Whyte, to the meeting. The format of the meeting is that we will hear his opening statement followed by a question-and-answer session with the members of the committee. We allocate seven minutes for those questions and answers, which includes the answers. I ask members to be concise in their questions to allow all members the opportunity to participate. We have been anxiously awaiting this. Mr. Whyte is the first witness of the new Dáil term in this Oireachtas committee. He is welcome today and we look forward to hearing from him on the work of UNRWA.
Mr. John Whyte:
I thank the Chairman and I wish the elected representatives a good afternoon. On behalf of my agency, I thank them for this opportunity to meet with them to say a bit about the work of UNRWA. As they can appreciate, these are challenging times in which we find ourselves, so it is important as part of the work of the agency and the implementation of our mandate that we reach out and advocate with as many member states as we can to spread the word about what we are doing and to look for support from the member states. I thank the committee for its kind invitation to provide an update on the activities of UNRWA in Gaza. While UNRWA also works in the West Bank, which is also facing many challenges, I will confine my comments to the situation in Gaza where I have been managing operations since November 2023.
As members are no doubt well aware, the situation in Gaza has been dramatically deteriorating since the imposition by Israel of a blockade on the entry of supplies into the Gaza Strip at the beginning of March this year. With the absence of food supplies since that time, conditions of famine have spread across the enclave, as formally confirmed by the international phase classification, IPC, on 27 August. In spite of the reopening of the border by the Israeli authorities to allow supplies to enter, the amounts that have managed to get in have been insufficient. As a result, conditions have not improved and a further update by the IPC later this month is expected to confirm the spread of famine to other parts of Gaza. On 15 September, the Israeli military launched a large-scale ground operation throughout Gaza city, escalating its attacks on inhabited residential buildings and dropping leaflets ordering residents to move south. Residential tower blocks and other buildings are being destroyed through aerial bombardment, artillery and the use of robotic tanks. As of 19 September, it is estimated that approximately 200,000 of the approximately 900,000 residents in Gaza have moved to the south in search of safety, many fleeing with only the most basic belongings. More are expected to do so over the coming days as IDF ground forces close in from the north west and the south east of Gaza city. However, it is anticipated that many will stay, if for no other reason that they cannot afford to leave or have nowhere safe to go. As has been repeatedly stated by our Commissioner General, nowhere is safe in Gaza.
For Gazans who have managed to flee south, shelter and other supplies are scarce or, where available, are simply too expensive for most people to afford. With the south now completely congested, there is simply insufficient space for people to find shelter. Amid all of this destruction, upheaval and misery, UNRWA has continued to deliver its services to the people in Gaza city, the middle area and the south of Khan Younis. Despite immense challenges, approximately 12,000 Palestinian UNRWA personnel in Gaza continue to provide critical services and assistance at scale to vulnerable populations across the Gaza Strip. The agency remains an active and leading partner in all sectors. Throughout the conflict and during the ceasefire period at the beginning of this year, UNRWA reached over 2 million people with critical food assistance. Since 2 March 2025, however, the agency has not been permitted by Israel to bring in any humanitarian assistance, including food, and ran out of food stocks inside Gaza at the end of April. Outside of Gaza, UNRWA has positioned enough food supplies to cover the food needs of the entire population for three months.
In terms of non-food items, NFIs, UNRWA has distributed either blankets, tents, mattresses or other vital NFIs to over 100,000 displaced families. Regarding health, UNRWA remains the second largest provider of medical care in the Gaza Strip, after the Ministry of Health, and the largest individual provider of primary care services. Since the beginning of this year, UNRWA has provided 2.7 million consultations, an average of 13,000 per day. As of 19 September, UNRWA operates six health centres and 20 medical points across the middle area and Khan Younis, with 1,000 healthcare staff employed.
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Sorry, Mr. Whyte, what is a consultation?
Mr. John Whyte:
In relation to water, sanitation and hygiene services, UNRWA has reached over half of the population through provision of domestic and drinking water, providing 1.4 million people with access to clean water. Each month we collect and dispose of 5,000 tonnes of solid waste, benefiting an estimated 1.7 million people. Since the beginning of the year, 900,000 people have been reached with hygiene promotion initiatives. UNRWA remains one of the largest providers of emergency learning across the Gaza Strip. Between January and September, more than 38,422 children benefited from in-person learning through the back-to-learning programme in 268 temporary learning spaces which were operational in UNRWA's shelters, focusing on expanded psychosocial support services and informal learning activities. During the same period, almost 300,000 students benefited from UNRWA's remote learning programme through three learning cycles. UNRWA operates the largest protection monitoring team in Gaza, providing services targeted towards vulnerable groups, including children, women, older people and those with disabilities. UNRWA has distributed dignity kits, sanitation and personal hygiene products, together with individual psychological first aid and family interventions. The agency continues to co-lead the site management cluster, and as of 11 September, 73 designated emergency shelters were managed by UNRWA, hosting some 82,715 displaced persons and over 1 million in the catchment areas surrounding these shelters.
With the pivoting of UNRWA services to the south following the IDF incursion into Gaza city, UNRWA has been repairing its installations to accommodate the anticipated influx of internally displaced person, IDPs, with 18 shelters now accessible following the expansion by the IDF of the so-called humanitarian zone in Khan Younis. As a result of the implementation of the Knesset legislation at the end of January 2025, UNRWA has been prevented from bringing its supplies into Gaza and these have remained since this time on trucks, in warehouses or with suppliers across Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Israel. Approximately 5,000 truckloads of food and non-food items are waiting to enter, including sufficient food to feed the population for three months. Once the entry of this aid into Gaza is permitted, UNRWA remains in a position to resume and expand its services once supplies can enter at scale.
In an environment where politics shapes everything, it is important for member states to influence key actors involved in this conflict. UNRWA and its partners must be allowed to better deliver their services to mitigate this catastrophic situation. In the meantime, UNRWA remains steadfast and resolute and will continue to adapt in response to the unfolding situation to deliver its critical services to the community.
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Before I go to the first contributor, we thank Mr. Whyte on behalf of the committee for the work he has done. I will keep it as simple as that. There is no point going into profundities, but I do not think we have any conception of what UNRWA is up against. We hope to get a glimpse into what they are doing. I will ask a preliminary question. What kind of physical shape are UNRWA personnel in? Perhaps Mr. Whyte could speak to that.
Imagine an area the size of Louth that had about 2.3 million people in it two years ago. Now, accounting for the people who have been killed and those who have managed to leave, the number is down to around 2.1 million, and these are squeezed into an area 18% of the original size. They have endured two years of almost constant bombardment and now a blockade. It is not a new blockade but one that has been ongoing since 2005 or 2007. This war has been unmitigating in its ferocity, intensity and barbarity, and throughout all of this our staff have continued to deliver their services, reporting to work each day and doing what they can with what they have.
You can only imagine the exhaustion, fatigue, hopelessness, despair and sense of having been abandoned by the world at large, which has watched what has happened there unfold in real time on social media. It is very hard to encapsulate exactly how staff must feel. They are just beyond exhausted and have been displaced, many 15 to 20 times. This latest displacement from Gaza is just one of many they have had to endure. Each time, it gets worse because now there are now fewer resources and conditions of famine, and people are leaving Gaza city literally with whatever they can carry, making their way down Al-Rashid Road, which members may have seen on social media or television. They do not know where they are going and they have nothing with them, and because of the lack of supplies in Gaza, they have nothing to shelter in. Therefore, many are sleeping in the open air. Winter will be coming in and the conditions will deteriorate. Many of our staff have decided to stay where they are in Gaza city, even though the tanks are closing in. Robot tanks are coming in and demolishing buildings in their path. Many of the staff have decided they will just stay where they are. They know their neighbours and they will die with their family where they are, because nowhere is safe. There is no guarantee of safety if they move to the south. It is a situation beyond words, beyond comprehension. I was there until March. The situation has got much worse since I was there and the future is looking very uncertain because, as I believe everyone is aware, parties to the conflict are, it seems, continuing with impunity and determination.
Shay Brennan (Dublin Rathdown, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Whyte for joining us but also for the work his agency does and his determined contribution to that.
I want to use my five or six minutes to focus on one area, the funding aspect. In some of the documents provided, Mr. Whyte referred to a funding gap. What is that funding gap for 2025 as it applies to both core and emergency programmes? What key services provided by UNWRA are most at risk due to the shortfall?
Mr. John Whyte:
I thank Deputy Brennan for that question. UNWRA has had perennial challenges in relation to funding. It is unlike many other agencies because it gets some of its funding from the core budget of the UN, from New York, but most of its funding is discretionary, coming from member states. Ireland has the distinction of being one of the top ten funders of UNWRA and, per capita, may even be one of the best. The extraordinary generosity of the Irish people is well recognised in Gaza. The fact that I am from Ireland does me no harm when I am working for UNWRA in the region with my colleagues. Nevertheless, the funding situation for the agency has continuously deteriorated. The budget of €1.2 billion to sustain operations in the five areas we work, namely, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza, has been unchanged since 2013, yet the amount of funding we get each year has dropped. Obviously, the US Administration cut funding back in 2016 under the Trump Administration. Under Biden, some of that funding was reinstated, but then, when Trump was re-elected, the funding was discontinued. We have struggled as an agency to replace that funding. We have to look to all sources, including member states, private giving and philanthropic sources. Typically, we get to about the middle of the year and then just hold our breath and go week by week until we can get to the end of the year. This year, of course, is even worse than previous years. The allegations made by Israel dented confidence in donors initially, but all but one or two came back to us because they were not convinced by those allegations. Therefore, our funding was somehow resumed, but nevertheless we have a funding gap of about €150 million to the year’s end and no certainty we can continue to pay salaries up until the end of the year. That leaves us under enormous pressure as an agency in sustaining the salaries of staff in Gaza, but also in the other fields, of course. You can appreciate that, for them, if the agency is not able to pay the salaries, it amounts to almost a death sentence for people living there. Without a salary, it is very hard to exist there because there is no social safety net. There are very limited supports. There is a blockade and the supplies getting in are very limited. You can appreciate that this is a critical situation for our staff. Of course, our staff may be better off than others because at least they have a salary within the UN system. UNWRA does not pay as well as some of the other UN agencies because it has such a large body of local staff; nevertheless, there is fear. Already the Commissioner-General has had to put about 800 staff in Egypt on exceptional leave without pay since early this year. Everyone is afraid the next decision could impact on them and they fear the consequences.
On the impact on services, the war has impacted on everything we are trying to do, of course. We used to have about 300 schools to educate about 300,000 children, but most of those schools have been damaged, if not completely destroyed, and are now serving as shelters for desperate homeless people. We are doing what we can to create temporary learning spaces within those so we can continue to provide some direct face-to-face engagement through psychosocial supports and recreational activities; however, with the influx of people from Gaza city, our learning spaces are under pressure. Thousands of people with nowhere to go are starting to take over some of these spaces and it is very hard for us to prevent that. It is understandable why people with nothing are looking for something or anything.
We are continuing to maintain our health services. Before the war, we had 26 health centres. Now, in the south, I believe we have three functioning. Where populations are concentrated, we have established medical points, which are like smaller versions of the centres. We are thankful to the WHO for helping to bring in some medical supplies for us and the other health partners. We are at least able to manage. We have about 16 core medicines and we keep a count of these on an ongoing basis. In about 50% of cases, we have less than one month’s stock available. It is still not great because these core medicines are used for all the regular things all of us would go to our GP for, such as non-communicable illnesses and chronic diseases requiring medication. Theses medicines are in very short supply. It is very hard to get insulin in, so diabetics find it very difficult.
We continue to provide protection supports for vulnerable groups as much as we can in the context, but the main thing is that our staff have decades of experience. We have been in the region for more than 75 years. There are colleagues who have worked there for 20, 30 or 40 years. It is a lifetime job with UNWRA. They have dedication and perspective and they have been through wars before, although maybe not one as bad as the current one. They are adaptable.
Most of our staff are teachers. Some 9,000 of the 12,000 staff, and there were 13,000 staff before the war, are teachers. Approximately half of those have had to adapt to other types of emergency operations that we provide, including supporting people in our shelters, etc. I hope that answers the Deputy's question.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Mr. Whyte is very welcome. At the outset, I acknowledge the 360 UNRWA staff who have been killed in the course of Israel's genocide. I express my own solidarity with those people who today are still risking their lives, as Mr. Whyte has said, to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people in the face of extreme terror. At the onset of Israel's genocide in Gaza, organisations which provided aid and social services in Gaza faced slander that was, as I understand it, entirely unsubstantiated to this day. The review by the European Union found that safeguards were working, yet it still chose to burden such organisations with additional red tape and bureaucracy. UNRWA was not immune to those utterly untrue slanders. Will Mr. Whyte speak to that impact that had on his organisation? Was funding denied to it? Has additional conditionality been placed on UNRWA? How has it impacted UNRWA's ability to alleviate the impacts of Israel's genocide on the people of Gaza? Mr. Whyte said that current funding has dropped to €150 million and that is all it has until the end of the year. In that light, could Mr. Whyte outline what efforts are currently in place with a view to ensuring UNRWA will receive the funding that is needed? How can we as a committee, through the Irish Government, support those efforts?
Mr. John Whyte:
I thank the Deputy for those good questions. I am sorry if I was not clear in my response to Deputy Brennan, We have a shortfall of €150 million in what we need to get to the end of the year. Of course, we cannot sugarcoat it. The allegations that were made against UNRWA by Israel had a devastating impact initially. Many funders cut their ties with UNRWA or suspended their funding immediately. As I mentioned earlier, these allegations were fully investigated by the Office of Internal Oversight Services, OIOS, in New York. When the allegations were found in whole or in part to be unsubstantiated, many countries and member states agreed to reinstate their funding to the agency. Of course, this has created a lasting slur, if you like, against the agency. Of course, it did not stop there. The Israeli propaganda machine is formidable. Israel has gone to huge expense and exorbitant lengths to try to vilify UNRWA. It is the witness to the plight of the Palestinians, as well as a provider of services. It is also a source of hope to the people. I found when I visited different areas that people would say that as long as UNRWA was present, they had hope. I think Israel wants to remove that hope
Mr. John Whyte:
It is clear that UNRWA is one of the pillars of stability in Gaza and elsewhere. It is Israel's strategic directive to try to remove that pillar. Of course, we hope and believe that our work speaks for itself in spite of all of this negative and adverse publicity. We work hard to advocate.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Is the European Commission still helping?
Mr. John Whyte:
The European Commission is a strong supporter of UNRWA. If anything, our funding from the European Commission has increased this year. We are grateful to the EU for its support for UNRWA. It provides soft power, in terms of diplomatic support, and crucial engagement, too, in terms of many of the core services that we operate. We find the Commission good to work with and supportive.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Does that not contrast sharply with the Commission's refusal to economically sanction Israel in response to the genocide? It has given no sanction.
Mr. John Whyte:
What I find is that different organisations adopt different and contrasting approaches to the same situation. I am not the politician in the room but the EU must operate by consensus and, of course, there are very divided opinions within the EU. Perhaps this is a part of the issue. From an UNRWA point of view, we are keen to engage with all member states to try to promote the value and importance of what we are doing, and demonstrate the necessity of it and how critical it is if these services are lost.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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Mr. Whyte is very welcome. As everyone else has, I acknowledge the good work that he and his colleagues do. I have heard what he and his team have gone through. One must be a special person and unique individual to be able to give that service to the Palestinians and the world in general. Few people have the capabilities to be able to do that. I acknowledge what UNRWA is doing.
Mr. Whyte said at the start that UNRWA is reaching out to member states. Deputy Bennett touched on an issue in her contribution. Politically, we are seeing different countries take different viewpoints as to what is happening. That is the politics side of it. From the perspective of Mr. Whyte and UNRWA, when reaching out to member states, are they getting different responses and different types of support? Which countries are going above and beyond? How challenging is that for the organisation?
Mr. John Whyte:
I thank the Senator for the question. He correctly mentioned that different countries have different viewpoints and approaches to UNRWA, as well as to the Israel-Palestine conflict. In our advocacy, we experience a range of responses. I do not want to mention the names of particular member states. I have mostly mentioned Ireland because it is important to acknowledge the support that this State has provided to the Palestinians over years and not just recently. We have a number of very key donors. Germany, for example, is a key donor and yet it is fair to say that Germany is quite divided, or perhaps not divided enough, on the issue. It is partisan on one side, I think it is fair to say. At the same time, it is, or has been, a big supporter of UNRWA. Trying to sustain that support is important. I did a mission to Berlin a couple of months ago. The people we met from the Germany federal foreign office were very supportive. Perhaps they were taking a long view of the relationship between Germany and UNRWA. Political parties come and go and change, and, of course, attitudes change accordingly. Some of the political parties there may be strongly aligned with the Israeli point of view so it is not an easy sell for us to advocate for the continuation of, or an increase in, the funding.
We are trying to engage more with other member states, such as the Gulf countries, because we wish they would do more for the Palestinians. It is not always easy because, of course, the Middle East is a very complex geopolitical environment.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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Why are they hesitant in the Middle East?
Mr. John Whyte:
The attitude of some of those member states, the Gulf countries, is that they did not create the problem. They may believe that those who created the problem should shoulder the responsibility. There is also a complex realignment of relationships in the Middle East. It is not an area I feel qualified to speak about because I am an operational person rather than somebody with a political role.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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Mr. Whyte said the humanitarian aid that UNRWA gives is one element of its work. Being witnesses on the ground is another element. He said that since 2 March, UNRWA has not been able to give humanitarian aid to Gaza. He said UNRWA has three months of food supplies that it could give-----
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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-----to 2.1 million people. Israel is talking about how it is delivering aid. It is obviously doing almost nothing but it cannot be doing absolutely nothing if it is claiming it is doing something. On the ground, what is Israel doing? I do not think anyone knows.
Mr. Whyte mentioned that 2.1 million people are now living in 18% of the Gaza Strip. This might be a silly question, but is the other 82% just vacant? Who is there? Who is controlling it?
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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It is almost like a room closing in.
Mr. John Whyte:
On all sides. What is available is a small amount of Gaza city, which is now being encircled, and the coastal strip further down in the middle area in Khan Yunis, a place called al-Mawasi which is basically a sandy area. It is just sand. It was mainly agricultural before the war and now it is just full of people. They have nowhere else to go. There is a military cordon and while there is no sign saying "Do not go beyond here", they know that the chances of being shot if they venture too far south, east or north are real. That is the reality.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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What about Israel's claim that it is providing aid to the Palestinian people?
Mr. John Whyte:
That is a good question because of course, again, their propaganda is very slick. They show their social media clips of Kerem Shalom and it looks like there are lots of trucks and lots of aid and they are saying that the UN needs to get its act together. What the UN, including UNRWA, showed back in January was that when there was a ceasefire and aid available at scale, 4,200 trucks per week were coming into Gaza. We had secure passage during the ceasefire period so we were able to deliver our supplies, at scale, to 1 million people in a couple of weeks. That is what UNRWA can do but since March there has been a blockade and no public order and the Israelis are only allowing a small amount of aid in. We have to remember that before the war, 700 trucks were coming into Gaza every day - 500 commercial and 200 humanitarian. What is coming in at the moment is only a fraction of that. On a typical day it is less than 50. Sometimes it can be up to 100 trucks, maybe. We had a blockade where nothing came in from March until the end of July which was enough for famine to be classified in Gaza city. We cannot make up for that. Even 700 trucks per day would not make up for that but what is coming in is less than that. The other issue is what is coming in. They are allowing one commercial supplier to bring in chocolate, biscuits and so on. This is not nutrition. This is not what people who are experiencing extreme malnutrition need to recover. It is easy for one side to say they are letting in supplies. What supplies and how much? The IPC will do its next phase of reporting and let us see what it has to say.
Noel McCarthy (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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Mr. Whyte is very welcome. I join my colleagues in complimenting him and his staff on their work. I can only imagine what they are facing daily, in terrible conditions. What are the operational obstacles being faced in Gaza at the moment? Mr. Whyte has talked about staff safety but I am also interested in issues like access, roadblocks, checks, supply chains for medicine and food, water and sanitation and so on. How many people are newly displaced and in urgent need that UNRWA is currently unable to reach?
Mr. John Whyte:
There is a fair bit in that. As I said earlier, UNWRA has about 12,000 staff so we have reach. We are working in a very narrow area but the issue is having resources to give to people. At the moment we can do face-to-face work, psycho-social support and engagement. We get a limited amount of supplies from partners that are able to bring in their supplies. In terms of the supplies we have outside, we are focusing on giving them to partners to bring in on our behalf but they are being told, quietly, not to give them back to UNRWA. We are being squeezed in every respect. The challenge then, once goods and supplies get in through Kerem Shalom, is that they have to go through Gaza without public order and with a starving population so almost everything is being looted almost immediately. There are formidable challenges. People are desperate. What would I do if I was in that situation and I had to feed my family and there was nothing, except what was coming in on a few scattered trucks? That really influences almost everything. What happens then is that it is looted, some of it finds its way to the market and people then have to pay hiked-up prices for it. It is very difficult to try to manage. There has not really been meat, vegetables or fruit for months or, at best, there are very limited supplies that are far too expensive.
I speak about the humanitarian zone which most of the people are being crowded into now but that is not humanitarian and it is not safe because it is still experiencing attacks on a daily basis. As I said earlier, nowhere is safe. Nowhere is safe for our staff and the people. There are no limits, really, to this war. We have seen the recognition by several UN member states of Palestine in recent days and of course, there is always an adverse reaction to that. The Israelis step things up because they want to make a point. This is how they see things and what we are seeing is a steady deterioration. Gaza city is now being systematically levelled. The north and south have already been levelled and now people are being squeezed from the north into the south and from there, who knows? The pressure is unrelenting. I said earlier that many people have chosen to stay because they just have nowhere to go. They are taking their chances where they are.
Noel McCarthy (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I have one more question. We talked about schools and education earlier. Are schools still operating and how many have been damaged?
Mr. John Whyte:
That is a good question. As I said earlier, we had about 300 schools before the war serving about 300,000 students. All of those schools have now become shelters. Of those, around 80% have been damaged and many of them have been destroyed completely. They were systematically blown up. They are not serving educational needs any more. Students and children have been without education for two years now and are facing into a third year. UNRWA still has teachers so we are doing online and remote education. Where people have access to the Internet, we have a basic curriculum which we can deliver online and we have been doing that. Where we can, we set up temporary learning shelters which are often very small rooms in some of the schools. Sometimes we have to ask families to vacate those rooms in order to let students in for an hour a day. We do as much face-to-face work as we can. We had about 60,000 children in these temporary learning spaces earlier this year but, because of the deteriorating situation, now that is probably down to 10,000 or 15,000 in a relatively small number of spaces. I mentioned earlier that families are desperate so even some of these learning spaces have had to be taken over by families for accommodation. It is grim. Nevertheless, we are preparing for the new academic year online and we will continue to do face-to-face work as long as we have the practical resources to do so.
Noel McCarthy (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I compliment UNWRA on the online provision. At least there is some sort of education being provided to children. It is good that those who are looking for an education are getting some sort of service.
Mr. John Whyte:
There is a very strong culture of education in Palestine. Everything else has been taken away from the Palestinians so they value education more than most of us do. They had one of the highest literacy rates in the world before the war. Of course, now all of that is a big challenge and the future is very uncertain around all of this but they want to learn.
Noel McCarthy (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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In terms of rebuilding, UNWRA cannot make plans for that because of the current situation.
Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Whyte for being here. As others have said, thanks are due to his team and to all of UNRWA's individual workers. The conditions they are working in are shocking. A lot of issues have already been covered so I will make a brief comment and then ask a question. As Mr. Whyte said himself, there are no words to describe this. It is beyond anything acceptable in terms of the human condition or in terms of any moral compass. It is just wrong. It is abominable. It is a horror and that goes without saying.
I take the point about the relatively universal recognition of Palestine probably upping the ante a bit, given how the reaction will make things difficult.
All aspects have been pretty well covered. It occurs to me that those who physically survive this hunger and so on will suffer long-term damage. Youngsters will suffer long-term damage in terms of development and I presume adults' lives will be greatly shrunken. There are many other aspects with various conditions such as rickets. There are not just those who tragically, wrongly and disgracefully will die. There are a whole lot of youngsters whose intellectual and physical development will be stunted for the future. It is also a number of adults whose normal life spans will be thwarted even if they are not immediate casualties.
This is slightly out of Mr. Whyte's remit but I would be interested in his view. If a sensitive and intelligent young person of 15 or 16 years of age sees his or her family wiped out, sees starvation around and is a victim, I think we are creating a new generation of suicide bombers. I know it is a very strong thing to say and a bit melodramatic but I am afraid that is the case. Does Mr. Whyte sense a radicalisation? I know the poor things are too oppressed at the minute but, ultimately, does he see a danger there? I would like his first two replies to look at the long-term effect on youngsters and adults.
Mr. John Whyte:
I thank the Senator. It is self-evident that anyone experiencing and enduring this horror for two years is going to be badly scarred by it, even if it ends now. It is not showing any sign of ending any time soon. As the Senator correctly mentioned, many have become orphaned. We have the highest number of child amputees in the world. There is physical trauma and there is psychological trauma, which will endure for generations. The Palestinians still talk about the Nakba, or catastrophe, that happened back in 1948. Can you imagine how many generations, families and children will be affected? It will be permanently seared on their brains, almost in their DNA. Irish people----
Mr. John Whyte:
I was going to make that point. We still in a sense have a collective memory of this, however many years on. You can only imagine that, with something like this and given the intensity of what has happened there in such a short space of time, it will be very hard to find a way back for these generations. It is very easy to imagine that they would be radicalised, particularly in the absence of any sense of justice for their plight and the absence of a political horizon. What life choices will they expect? How can anyone rebuild a life after this easily? This war has been an exercise in obliterating the conditions for life.
Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)
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In the long term, the physical and mental development of kids and youngsters will be impacted.
Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)
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Even the starvation will have implications, will it not, for their natural development?
Mr. John Whyte:
I think for sure. It is a whole constellation of impacts on childhood development. Neurological, physical, emotional and social, all of it has been impacted. You would have to worry about the future of these children and young people and what they will decide to do with their lives. What are their choices? They are really very limited.
Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)
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I would be very afraid of that. I thank Mr. Whyte.
Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I apologise for being late to the meeting, but I had a question in the Chamber. I thank UNRWA for the incredible work that is being done. Mr. Whyte has detailed in his statement the number of UNRWA staff who have been killed or injured and the circumstances under which they must be working. It is very important work.
I might ask some questions about the situation on the ground, but I will first ask about the international context. In my own opinion, it was regrettable and a significant mistake on the part of Commissioner Kaja Kallas to give credence to and political cover for Israel in relation to the criticisms of UNRWA about a year ago or so. What has happened subsequently is appalling, with the weaponisation of aid. Does Mr. Whyte agree that western leaders, whether intentionally or unintentionally, gave political cover for the Israeli and United States Governments to proscribe UNRWA's activity in Gaza?
Mr. John Whyte:
For UNRWA, we are an operational agency with a renewable mandate. Our job is to implement services on the ground in response to the mandate we are given by the UN General Assembly and the funding we are given by New York and member states. On the political side of things, we welcome these opportunities to engage actively but of course our mandate is not really political in the same way. There are other UN agencies that have a more explicit political mandate. I am not trying to avoid the Deputy's question but I am trying to contextualise where our duties and obligations lie as an agency.
As we have commented already, the political temperature around UNRWA is superheated. Serious allegations were made and member states reacted, maybe took them at face value and perhaps did not wait for due process to be followed. We were adversely impacted by all of that. Thankfully, the subsequent investigations have vindicated or at least shown that there is no case to answer, unlike was alleged. Nevertheless, the commissioner-general was put in a position where he took drastic action to dismiss some staff who were on an initial list because he felt that, in the absence of any time for a due process, he had no choice but to take action. He did that but the investigation then vindicated some of those staff. The damage was done at the beginning and we have been struggling to recover ever since. As I said earlier, that campaign against UNRWA has not stopped. It is consistent and ongoing. As was acknowledged by one of the committee members, the Colonna report, which was commissioned to look into the allegations and UNRWA's standing in terms of neutrality, found that we were actually probably more neutral than most other agencies in terms of our safeguards, internal policies and procedures. Of course, there is always room for improvement. It is an organisation of 30,000 staff across five different fields. Nevertheless, given that we place such a high regard on the importance of impartiality, independence, neutrality and the humanitarian approach to delivery of aid, we have disciplined ourselves to a large extent because we know that we are the most targeted and watched agency and because of the political nature of the context in which we are operating. I hope that answers the Deputy's question.
Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Yes. I have two further questions for this round. I hope to come in with some other matters if we have a further round. UNRWA operates on the basis of a mandate that is renewable. In recent months, unfortunately, another UN-mandated deployment or mission, albeit a very different one, namely UNIFIL, has not had its mandate renewed for post 2027. Is there any fear on Mr. Whyte's part about the renewal of UNRWA's mandate? Perhaps it operates under a different mechanism or qualifications and perhaps there is more robust protection for it. It is difficult to think of any precedent for what is happening in Gaza in terms of the weaponisation and denial of aid. I am thinking of the attempts by the Israeli Government, supported by the US Government, to usurp the legal mandate of UNRWA with the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
There is a lot of concern about the kind of personnel they have and that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been deploying, including security contractors and so on. I refer to groups with maybe some extreme views who are being employed as personnel. Can Mr. Whyte give us any insight into the experiences on the ground of his own personnel and also the civilian population as to the kind of people engaged by the GHF?
Mr. John Whyte:
I thank the Deputy. With regard to the mandate, yes, that is correct. It is renewed every three years. Renewing the mandate is less of a concern for us because it is by a vote of the UN General Assembly. Consistently, we have a resounding endorsement of our mandate. I think it will be renewed. The usual people will continue to vote against it. While it is easy enough to push a button in the UN General Assembly, the challenge we face is to provide the resources to enable us to implement that mandate. That is where we have always struggled, as I mentioned earlier. That will continue to be a big challenge for us because there is a lot of pressure on many member states to defund UNRWA and stop supporting its work. It is very unclear for us exactly what the future will hold.
Of course, we are confident that given the resources and the operational conditions, we can implement our mandate. During the ceasefire in January, we demonstrated that objectively. We have 75 years of experience in Gaza so we know what we are doing. We have incredibly experienced, dedicated and committed staff. What we are facing, of course, is unprecedented attacks on all fronts, including operational and legal constraints. We will continue to try to weather the storm. The staff have been through difficult times before, albeit nothing like this, and they are determined. They will turn up to work whether I am in Gaza or outside of it. I have not been able to be there since March but the staff still turn up every day to do what they can to support their people on a daily basis, come what may. I have staff in the north. I am trying to persuade them not to go to the office because the tanks are about 300 m away.
To answer on the GHF, of course, the concerns about the GHF are well known. We have staff, sadly, who went to try and get food from the GHF sites and we have no idea what happened to them. They did not return.
Patricia Stephenson (Social Democrats)
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I read that MSF report which, I think, came out in July. It was really bleak reading about the Gaza Humanitarian Fund sites. That speaks to a point a Senator made earlier around Israel using the GHF as a cover for this notion of providing aid.
I know Mr. Whyte has spoken about the importance of UNRWA for the Palestinian people. It would be helpful, for the purposes of the record, to talk specifically about the right to return, why that is so crucial, and UNRWA's role in providing some sense of administration in services until the stage that the Palestinian people can have their own governing structure. It is important that people really understand that is what UNRWA represents.
Mr. Whyte has spoken a bit about Khan Younis and the situation down there with the lack of supplies. It might be helpful for us to hear, in the context of winter coming and what winter will mean in Khan Younis and all of the Gaza Strip, about cholera, the health situation, how that is going impact on UNRWA's operations, IDPs more broadly and what kind of health risks Mr. Whyte sees ramping up over the winter period.
Mr. Whyte spoke a lot about education as well, with regard to it being fundamental for the collective consciousness of the Palestinian people. It is great that UNRWA has managed to do some sorts of educational pieces. I know there are some universities in Ireland as well doing online work with students at third level. It would be great to hear Mr. Whyte's perspective on what more we could be doing on that educational piece. We obviously cannot get aid in - that is the pressing issue of the day - but what can we do to support Palestinians from Ireland around the educational piece with respect to reconstruction, protecting that collective consciousness and having leaders in place for such time as people can step into leadership positions when this genocide eventually ends?
Mr. John Whyte:
The Senator's last points kind of link to the first point because UNRWA's mandate is perceived to link very strongly to the right of return. The mandate is based on the provision of services to the Palestinian people in the host countries pending a just political resolution to their plight. We were only ever established as a temporary agency 75 years ago, and so our three-year mandate continuously turns over because there has been no political solution thus far. We will welcome the day when there is orderly political stability, a framework of agreement and the possibility of a managed transition to some sort of civil service from the Gazan and Palestinian people in each of the different areas. It still feels far away. Until then, we will continue to do what we can.
One of the motives, I believe, of the Israeli Government to try to get rid of UNRWA is the perception that we are inextricably linked with the right of return but actually, the legislation linked to right of return is separate to UNRWA. Just because you get rid of UNRWA, for example, you do not get rid of the right to return. That will continue to be enshrined in international humanitarian law as a UN resolution, so it will continue. Nevertheless, as I said earlier, UNRWA somehow has this symbolic role and position. That is maybe what is being targeted, in my view.
On winterisation, the Senator is right. We are now facing into a very bleak couple of months. The winter storms will mean thousands of tents currently on the beach will be washed away if they cannot be moved. Having lived on the Mediterranean coast for the last 12 years in one place or another, whether in Lebanon or in Gaza, I know that the storms raise the sea level. Last winter in Gaza, tents were washed away and people were made homeless overnight. Whatever shelter you could call a home was taken away from them. Yes, we are facing into that. We are also facing into increased public health risks, as the Senator correctly pointed out, with fewer medical supplies and capacity to deal with that. As I mentioned earlier, we had 22 health centres before the war. Now we are down to three or four in the south. We are trying to repair more. We recently managed to regain an area called Hamad. We have a health centre in Hamad that, fortunately, was not too damaged during the most recently Israeli incursion so we are fixing it up and are going to reopen it. We have about a thousand healthcare staff - doctors, nurses, midwives and paramedical professionals - and they will continue to serve. We just have to fix up the places with whatever materials we have available. We are resourceful and adaptable. We rebuild, readjust, recalibrate and keep going. It is what we do.
Nevertheless, the public health risks of cholera are very real and we have to wait and see. Thank God, the outbreak we saw before was contained and managed. UNRWA has been critical to immunisation. The other thing Palestinians value as much as education is public health and they have one of the highest rates of immunisation in the world. They are very open to this, so if we can get the supplies, we can manage.
Patricia Stephenson (Social Democrats)
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On getting in supplies, is UNRWA impacted by the lack of cash in the Gaza Strip?
Mr. John Whyte:
We have insulin sitting in El Arish in the north of Egypt. It has been sitting in trucks there for months. The refrigerator trucks are costing us a fortune but we cannot get them in. Having money to buy more supplies is always an issue but we already have our 2025 medical supplies for the year purchased and sitting in warehouses in Amman. We are working with the WHO to try to bring them in but they can do only what they can and limited supplies are being allowed in. This is just the simple reality. Whether it is medicine, food or shelter supplies, it is all sitting outside.
Patricia Stephenson (Social Democrats)
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Are there any international staff on the ground from UNRWA since Mr. Whyte left in March? Has that option and accessibility been closed?
Mr. John Whyte:
It is impossible. We are all outside and we will not be allowed to return. We are not the only agency, by the way. Other agencies have also had staff denied entry. International NGOs have had their registration revoked.
Reregistration is linked to providing names of staff and a lot of it is linked to intelligence. A lot of agencies are just very reluctant to go down that road.
Patricia Stephenson (Social Democrats)
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If we have more time at the end, I might get Mr. Whyte to speak a bit more about the reregistration that is going on and the risk to national staff.
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Our next speaker is Senator Higgins who is accompanied, I suspect.
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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No, you have your hands full.
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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If it is okay, I will speak with the camera off.
I want to focus on something that has been discussed previously, and this is civilian deaths. More than 2,000 have been associated with the new distribution sites, which have very much been criticised as points of targeting. Will Mr. Whyte comment on how they have been used and the deaths associated with these distribution points?
Will Mr. Whyte comment on the specific targeting of UNRWA staff and infrastructure, specifically in terms of the impact of the legislation introduced by Israel which is, in addition to the blockade, an additional layer of blocking UNRWA-marked aid? Does this legislation create explicit and additional difficulties in terms of, for example, the capacity of UNRWA staff to engage with the Israeli military to try to create some guarantees of safety for the movement of individuals or for the specific sites where UNRWA is delivering support? I would appreciate if Mr. Whyte would speak to these issues.
Will Mr. Whyte speak more about water? We know food has been blockaded. Has access to water been affected and, if so, how? I wish to ask about the forced displacement from Gaza city. We are seeing the destruction of Gaza city. Is it correct to say that more than half of the remaining medical facilities are in Gaza city? How much of an exponential increase in the humanitarian crisis is likely with the targeting of Gaza city? I apologise for bunching all of my questions; it is in order that I can turn off my mic. Mr. Whyte mentioned robot attacks. Will he comment on how technologies have been specifically deployed with regard to what he has seen on the ground? What additional dangers does this create for civilians?
Mr. John Whyte:
I thank Senator Higgins. These are all very good questions. As Senator Stephenson mentioned, MSF has reported extensively on the GHF sites and the controversy associated with them. I do not think I need to elaborate more. Senator Higgins has correctly mentioned the deaths that have taken place at these sites. Of course these are being denied or minimised but it is pretty incontrovertible from our point of view. People are going there to try to get aid in desperation. You would have to be very desperate to put your life at risk to try to get a box of food parcels because these are killing zones. There is no way to say it otherwise. They are staffed by mercenaries and if there are desperate people and guys who are heavily armed with license to shoot, then, of course, it is a recipe for disaster. UNRWA has distributed food for 75 years without fatalities. It is not a condition of getting food that you risk being shot.
UNRWA wants the humanitarian system to be allowed to implement aid assistance because we can do it. We are trained to do it. We know how to do it safely, correctly and appropriately. We do not have public order issues at our sites when we have ample supplies and the ability to distribute at scale because the people trust they will be fed. They are not desperate when there is enough food. We did not have mass looting in January and early February during the ceasefire. It is only when the ceasefire broke down and the blockade started the people became desperate and started overrunning everywhere to try to get food in understandable desperation.
Yes, UNRWA buildings have been targeted and our infrastructure has been targeted but so has everything in Gaza. We have protocols for raising our complaints, through the machinery of international humanitarian law, to the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs and everything is documented. We do not usually get the opportunity to investigate internally because we cannot have access to these sites when they are blown apart. They are usually in a militarised zone. We cannot check to see what happened and do a forensic examination of the site. Also, it is more the mandate of other agencies to do this but they have also been precluded from being in Gaza.
In terms of the blocking of UNRWA aid, as I mentioned, in some ways it does not match the letter of the Knesset legislation; it is just a discretionary decision by the Israelis because they control access into Gaza. How the Knesset legislation impacts on UNRWA is that there is no contact on Gaza. We cannot get out without contact and we cannot get in without contact. This is why international staff are stuck outside now.
There is a whole bureaucracy around the administration of aid. This can be slowed down or speeded up at will if people want to frustrate or facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance. What we see on a daily basis is the frustration, impediment and denial of the entry of aid into Gaza. It happens in so many ways.
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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I have a quick supplementary on this before Mr. Whyte moves to the question on water.
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Senator Higgins will have to wait.
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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Mr. Whyte mentioned UNRWA had to rely on the World Health Organization to bring in medical supplies for it. Is it similar for the three-month food supply? Is there scope for co-operation? How important is explicit pressure on the food supply?
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Senator Higgins's time is up. We will have a second round shortly.
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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May I quickly ask, because I may not be able to ask questions in the second round-----
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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Mr Whyte might be afforded the opportunity to answer the question.
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Senator Higgins cannot ask now but she will have an opportunity to come back on it. I need to be fair to everyone. With the greatest respect to Senator Higgins, and I am fierce fond of her, I am afraid of setting precedent in the committee. We stick to our time limits. I will give Mr. Whyte time to answer the questions.
I have some questions to ask in my own time. Will Mr. Whyte confirm how many UNRWA casualties there have in the past two or three years?
Mr. John Whyte:
I thank the Cathaoirleach. The figure is approximately 260 all told but it includes 60 or so complementary personnel who are not UNRWA staff as such. We have a jobs creation programme whereby we recruit people from the community to do work. It is like a community employment scheme we might have in Ireland. The figure is approximately 300 staff and 60 complementary personnel.
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Am I correct in saying that UNRWA personnel are not allowed to rotate in or out?
Mr. John Whyte:
As internationals we were able to rotate from the start of the war until the end of March this year. Local Gaza staff cannot get out unless through medical evacuation. Until May 2024, when the border into Egypt was still open, it was possible for people, if they paid enough money and had the correct paperwork, to leave. Some people left until May 2024 but after that it was not possible for anyone to leave except through medical evacuation.
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Is it all local staff now?
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Are they rotated?
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Does Mr. Whyte see any chink whereby the international community could capitalise on this in Israeli public opinion? Is there anything the West could do?
Clearly, the Israeli Government is not for turning. There is no point in wasting energy there, but what about Israeli public opinion?
Mr. John Whyte:
Again, I am not really a politician, but we have all seen the news where even the protests on the streets in Tel Aviv to free the hostages have not really yielded much sympathy. What we see is that the Israeli public may be uncomfortable with some of the detail but generally support the substance of the war. What we see in the terms of the Knesset votes is that they are overwhelmingly in favour of measures related to the war. It is hard to see hope there at the moment. You never know, of course, because it is a very complex geopolitical dynamic. We have a US President who is keen to win the Nobel Prize. He and his Administration are very keen to pursue the Abraham Accords and to try to promote economic development in the region. You never know what might come out of that.
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Do you see any evidence of forward planning in respect of the most well-known or infamous articulation of that economic development of Gaza?
Mr. John Whyte:
We know that some on the right in Israel are actively preparing plans for a resettlement in Gaza. We know that. That is reported in the news, and I think it is credible. The war is still in full force. If anything, it is being conducted more aggressively than ever. It seems that the Israeli prerogative or primary objective is to empty Gaza city in the north and force everyone down to the south. The Israeli Prime Minister has insisted that Israel does not intend to occupy Gaza, but we know that there are some who have a different view and a different plan.
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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If Israel gets its way, how will this end?
Mr. John Whyte:
What I know is that there are, let us say, 2.1 million people in Gaza. What I know is that there is nowhere for them to go. They will stay there if there is nowhere for them to go. Some maybe have expressed a willingness to leave if the possibility were to present itself. However, many would stay. Most would stay, I suspect. If you have a family, however, and want to educate your children and give them a future, what do you do? These are not easy questions to answer. There is a lot of pressure on some countries to take large numbers of Palestinians, but it is very hard to see that materialising. In the meantime, there eventually will be a ceasefire. Eventually, this war will end and 2.1 million or so people will need support. Who is going to provide that? Will it be Israel as occupying power? It is Israel's obligation under international humanitarian law to provide for the welfare, protection and safety of these people. Is it going to do that?
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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What about the fabulously wealthy neighbours, namely the Arab states in the region?
Mr. John Whyte:
I speculated earlier that some of the other Gulf countries have their own strategic objectives. Some are willing to normalise ties with Israel and some are willing to look to a slightly different set of alignments. I think it was Hannah Arendt who once said that a country without resources or capital has no power. Palestine, unfortunately, seems to fit that description. It is short on friends because it has less to offer, except the moral argument of its situation.
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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We will go to a second round. I call Deputy Brennan.
Shay Brennan (Dublin Rathdown, Fianna Fail)
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I will stay with the funding theme I opened with. I assume the actual spending of UNRWA in the region is split between staff costs, which I imagine are the bulk of the spend, and purchasing supplies, food, medicine, etc. If there is a stockpile building - Mr. Whyte mentioned that up to three month's worth has built up at the border - I assume some of this is perishable or maybe not. Is that stockpile sufficient? Is there any point in continuing to add to that or is it at a level that you would seek just to sustain and then add to at a future date?
On the wages aspect, how are the UNRWA personnel getting paid? I assume the financial system has collapsed there. Mr. Whyte talked earlier about there maybe not even being sufficient funds to pay them, but hopefully there are. How does that get to them? In a war situation, what use is currency on the ground? Does it have value?
Mr. John Whyte:
Good questions. In terms of the stockpiling of supplies, some of them will expire. As a result, we are under pressure. We have flour for Gaza for a year, which is in Mersin in Turkey and Alexandria in Egypt. There is also a small amount in Amman in Jordan. We are under time pressure as well as financial pressure to get that flour into Gaza. We are working with, as I mentioned earlier, our partners, principally the WFP, because it has the ability to move food at scale, and that is what it does. We are hopeful that it will take two thirds of the supply of the 20,000 tonnes we have in Mersin. It will therefore take approximately 14,000 tonnes and we have 6,000 tonnes that are close to expiring. What we have to look at then is maybe converting it into another type of foodstuff - pasta, high-energy biscuits or whatever - in order to extend its shelf life. We are examining options around that. We are also looking to see if we can maybe swap it out. In such circumstances, suppliers in Turkey might take the 6,000 tonnes that we have sitting there and replace them with a quantity of fresher flour. This would at least give us more time to try to figure out what to do. We have not had this situation before. We normally move food in at a scale continuously. We have the logistics teams and capacity to do that. Now, however, simply because of obstruction, the supplies are stuck and accumulating storage charges, which is another drain on our resources. Realistically, we are not going to be allowed to bring in supplies, so I think we will stop procuring additional supplies. There is no point in adding to the queue that is already there.
Staff are paid through the Bank of Palestine. They can access their funds electronically, but they need to get cash because cash is king in Gaza. They need to pay a financial service provider, which charges a hefty commission, in order to get their salaries. If my salary is $1,000, I might get $500 of it.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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It has been quite disturbing just listening to details of what is going on. Are there any hospitals left where people can receive medical treatment?
Mr. John Whyte:
Very limited. There is Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza city, which has been attacked God knows how many times. I was talking this morning to colleagues in Médecins Sans Frontières, which has two primary health care clinics south of Al-Shifa. They are very worried because of the tanks being very close now to Al-Shifa, maybe 300 m away. The hospital is now literally on the front line of the conflict and there are international teams of staff in there. They are sheltering in place. They will continue to do their work for as long as they are able to. Eventually, they may have to be pulled out of there. It has happened before and it looks like it is going to happen again. We have some hospitals in the south that are by the Ministry of Health. There are also a few other hospitals that are run by different entities.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Is nothing being offered to the people who want to leave the Palestine? If families want to leave, can they do so?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Does Mr. Whyte know offhand how many people have left?
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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So, these people are actually trapped then.
Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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It is the Israelis that are trapping them.
Noel McCarthy (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Whyte for his responses so far. I have just a couple of question. What role can the Irish Government play or is it already playing to help ensure more aid gets through via United Nations channels safely and quickly? What warnings or concerns does UNRWA have about donor fatigue or shrinking international attention and what risk does that pose to the stability of its programme, especially in Gaza?
Mr. John Whyte:
I thank the Deputy. These are good questions also. The Irish Government, as I acknowledged earlier, has played a very positive role, both in terms of support through the Department of foreign affairs and Irish Aid. It is a massively important donor, consistent, reliable and contributing to our programme budget, which is our core funding and kind of pays for all our core services - education, health, protection, etc. It is highly valued and really very important. In advocacy, as well, the Irish Government is leading the way in terms of debate at a European level. It is a matter of record.
Can more be done? Always. The EU is divided. It is important that Ireland and other similar-minded member states galvanise themselves. Governments change and so there are opportunities and things can go one way or the other, but it is good that the Irish Government has been consistent. There is cross-party consensus, I think it is safe to say, on this issue and that is greatly welcomed. There are not many member states with that approach and track record.
Donor fatigue is a reality. This war has ground on for two years. There are other wars. There are other conflicts. There is a lot of demand for very few resources. The UN system has never been under more threat because of the approach, let us say, of the current US Administration, and a lot of the big agencies have had to lay off massive amounts of staff. Now, the whole idea of multilateralism is under massive threat. That is simply a reality. We have to hope for better days and we have to also believe from what we saw in Italy yesterday, for example, that not everybody thinks like his or her government. It is important that we do not give up. We cannot give up because the alternative is unthinkable. Gaza is maybe an idea of what could happen elsewhere, I am sorry to say.
Noel McCarthy (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Whyte and the Chair.
Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)
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I was at a different briefing on the situation in Gaza another day and the experts there were telling us that there was general anarchy now, that the whole - what might appear to be quasi-democratic - structures are completely broken, governance is broken down, there is anarchy in the streets and everywhere else, and all sorts of local people taking over control arbitrarily. What would Mr. Whyte say to that? What is the power of Hamas within Gaza now? Does Mr. Whyte sense it is diminished? Does he sense they have a handle on people or how does he sense where they are at now?
Mr. John Whyte:
These are good questions. There is a complete absence of public order. When I first started working there at the end of November 2023, there was no looting, trucks were not hijacked, and aid was able to enter and be distributed across the Gaza Strip unimpeded, but that changed. Obviously, the blockade and desperation, and the reduction of supplies and starvation, change everything. I guess I do not know. As somebody once said, we are only a couple of meals away from a revolution in any country.
Mr. John Whyte:
Hamas, I think most people would agree, is greatly weakened. There is not much left, but the thing is - in this country we know this all too well - you cannot defeat an ideology. What you can have is a political process and a peace process, which we have also shown to the world, but you cannot defeat an ideology. The Israeli Prime Minister believes that this can be done but we know this cannot be done.
Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Whyte. He has answered me well.
Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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One of the things I suppose I find hard to get my head around is the day-to-day existence of the typical staff of UNRWA. Maybe Mr. Whyte can clarify this. It is something I suppose I probably struggle to understand, but I imagine the vast majority of the staff are from Gaza. What proportion of them would be, either originally or currently, from outside of the Gaza area?
I suppose travel in and out is extremely difficult. Mr. Whyte alluded to that in terms of his own situation. Are there any staff in the past year who have been able to travel in and out or is it entirely reliant on staff who are living there and have always lived there?
Mr. John Whyte:
The national staff in Gaza are from Gaza. There was only every a small number of us internationals - maybe 20, 25 or maybe 30 back in the day. That is a staff of 13,000 and we were just the senior managers. Since it is a UN agency, it has to have an international staff component, but we are unique as an agency, where the majority of staff are also the beneficiaries of that UN agency. For me, it is the thing that drew me to the agency because it is an operational agency. Agencies, such as the WHO and UNICEF, do great work - do not get me wrong - but they work through implementing partners. They manage grants and they manage relationships with implementing partners whereas, for me, as an operational manager, I go on convoys. When there, I go on distributions. I roll up my sleeves. I can help manage fuels. I can help manage whatever we deliver. We have doctors. We have engineers. We have teachers. We have social workers. They do direct work and I really respect that. That is what I am interested in. I am a practical person, so I like an agency that focuses on practical implementation and delivery of services to the people that need them. They have the trust of the community built up over 70 years.
On the demographics of Gaza, you have the people from Gaza who are always there and then you have refugees from 1967 and 1948 - you have maybe 1.4 million of those who are people who came in at different times in different waves because of the conflict in the region.
Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Since the dawn of human conflict, ever since there has been conflict and destruction, disease has almost always followed. On top of the direct injuries from bombings, the lack of food, the breakdown in water systems, sewage systems, etc., and the situations people are living in, it seems that the risk of the spread of disease is greatly heightened. I wonder if there is something Mr. Whyte can say on that and the situation in terms of infectious diseases or anything like that. Is that an escalating situation?
Mr. John Whyte:
It is. That is the reality. We have had it in waves. Obviously, the lack of proper nutrition, the lack of proper hygiene, the lack of proper infrastructure and the lack of anything that you can call a dignified life has led, of course, to a deterioration in public health. With people living in close proximity in very unhygienic circumstances, there is a susceptibility to all sorts of water-borne infections, to respiratory illnesses and to all sorts of disease. It has happened many times and it will happen again this coming winter.
Patricia Stephenson (Social Democrats)
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I have a quick few questions about the re-registration and the impact that is having on UNRWA and maybe other international NGOs, including Irish Aid-funded NGOs.
It is also worth putting on the record that the US sanctions on Palestinian human rights organisations like the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Al-Haq and Al Mezan are basically causing them to close down. It would be good to hear from Mr. Whyte the impact that is having on the whole NGO operating civil society space.
I do not know if Mr. Whyte heard about plans - I think it was reported in the Associated Press and might be a little out of his remit - by the Israeli regime to offer to people the option of moving to South Sudan. Is that something serious, as Mr. Whyte sees it on the ground? It would be interesting to hear from him on that. He also made the distinction between implementing and non-implementing organisations. Are there smaller civil society groups in Gaza that are implementing and are able to implement on behalf of the likes of WHO?
Mr. John Whyte:
In respect of INGOs, they are facing challenges around re-registration. Again, it is partly around Israeli control over who works for who doing what and having control over that. They have control over everything. Yes, it threatens their ongoing viability and their ability to be present. We are working remotely and stuck with our supplies while working to get them in. Many INGOs are also in a similar situation to us and are facing the exact same challenges. We are meeting them outside to scratch our heads and try to figure out if there is anything different we could try. Of course, there is a funnel but there is so much aid outside and so little being able to get in. We are all trying to get in and then whatever gets in is getting looted anyway. It is really bleak at the moment.
Regarding South Sudan, I alluded to it earlier without mentioning the country but, yes, there is pressure on other countries to take large numbers of Palestinians. It is a political issue and not within my remit.
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Who is the pressure from, Mr. Whyte?
Mr. John Whyte:
I think there is pressure from Israel and probably pressure from the US, I would imagine, because they are the two main stakeholders or partners working on this war. I think it is a matter of record; I do not think I am speculating on this. Will it succeed? I doubt it. Would some go? I have colleagues who would go tomorrow. If you opened the gates, they would go. They have had enough. Everyone has had enough. You would not blame them but there are many who will stay. There are now 400,000 people still in Gaza surrounded by tanks, robotic bombs and everything. They are still there; they have not gone. I have colleagues who stayed the last time. They stayed right throughout and never left Gaza after October 2023. They stayed there, they served the people and they continued. I am not trying to make them anything superhuman. They are ordinary people just like us, but they chose to stay and stand their ground, and they are paying a massive price for it. There are a lot of local actors and local partners who are implementing on the ground - Gazan people who work with different voluntary organisations. They are the ones doing the work as well as UNRWA and the big organisations.
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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Following up on Gaza City, as I understand it, half of the medical infrastructure - certainly intensive care and hospitals - is mainly in Gaza City. How much of an escalation in the health component of the humanitarian crisis would it be when we see Gaza City specifically pushed down? I also asked about water, the situation in that regard and how that is being found, supplied and moved around.
Mr. Whyte mentioned the robot tanks a number of times. On this idea of effectively automated killing either through the algorithmic targeting or the robotic tanks, will Mr. Whyte comment on the mechanisation of some of these and the impact it has on civilians? We know that is an area, with things like the dual-use technologies where there is a focus, and probably needs to be more of a focus, on the technologies facilitating these actions.
I know the West Bank is not his area but Mr. Whyte might have a colleague or others who could comment on that. He mentioned this could be happening elsewhere and if we allow this to happen, it changes the bar for what is considered in any way acceptable or possible and the danger of these kinds of scenes being extrapolated not only to the West Bank but maybe elsewhere internationally. He might also comment on that.
Mr. John Whyte:
There are a couple of sources, by and large, for water. The Israelis have three major pipelines called Mekorot lines which bring water into Gaza. They turn them on and off strategically as per their decision. We have ground water which is accessed through wells. Many of these wells in the north have been systematically destroyed. We have wells up in the north in Jabalia 8 which can now no longer be used. Water is, of course, the critical issue; food comes close after that. We have been water trucking and using partners to help us with supplying water in water tankards, driving them around to our different shelters in Gaza City. Beach camp is where many have been displaced to, but those contractors have left the north and have now gone to the south, so our ability to provide water is very limited other than where we have wells, where we can actually pump and we still have generators, because as we lose ground, we are trying to relocate our precious assets. Generators cost a fortune in Gaza because you cannot get them in. We have many outside but we cannot get them in. We have to try to retrieve whenever we lose control of an area or it is not safe for us to continue operating in an area. We need to try to bring the assets back to somewhere else. We are continuously trying to do this but we are trying to at least serve people where they are.
This is all about forced displacement of people from Gaza and the north. It is explicit Israeli policy. If people are not allowed to return to an area where they are being displaced from, that is ethnic cleansing. That is a categoric and textbook definition.
Regarding robotic tanks, this is just the latest iteration of a highly technical war that we have seen increasingly mechanised and fought remotely. You have drones in the sky, you have unmanned aerial vehicles, and you have everything. Obviously, for the weapons industry, Gaza has been a testing ground for a long time.
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. Whyte, you mentioned recalibrating, resilience and being there for 70 years. I can only speak for myself, but I am sure it is mirrored by other people, that the sense of disillusionment, helplessness, hopelessness and doom I would feel when reading reactions or seeing a chink of light get shut off means my heart literally and physically sinks, and I am not within a micro-distance of the situation that you are so intimately connected with. This is not a clichéd question. What motivates you and other UNRWA staff? What keeps you at the tiller here, because there is no end in sight? It is one of the most dispiriting, disillusioning and dark things - you could go on. Seamus Heaney once had the line, which I have used before, that sanity has lost its voice or sanity has become hoarse. It has stopped talking about it. It is not a vainglorious question for you, and thank you and your UNRWA personnel - the world owes you a debt of thanks - but what is it that keeps you going?
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.
John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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It seems appropriate that we let the clock tick to 3 minutes 30 seconds and silently reflect on what Mr. Whyte has said to us. That was a very powerful statement.