MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
What's it been like to live through these last two years of war in Gaza? Here's how Palestinian journalist Shrouq Aila explained it to my colleague Leila Fadel this week. And she added that these two years of war have coincided with the first years of her daughter's life.
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SHROUQ AILA: Dania spent more than half of her age with no drinkable water, with no medical supplies for her illness, with no milk, with no diapers. And because of the famine, she grows up on canned food. She doesn't recognize the apples, the banana and all the other kind of fruit.
KELLY: Aila and her daughter are like many thousands of Palestinians in that they have been hungry through much of the war. The International Rescue Committee is one of the organizations that's trying to help, trying to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. David Miliband is the IRC's president and CEO. He's in our studios to talk about what comes next. David Miliband, welcome.
DAVID MILIBAND: Thanks very much.
KELLY: So you've got the challenge of trying to get aid to people who are moving, who may not have a place to sleep. Forget the food, forget all of the other challenges they're facing, what about just the starting challenge of getting food into Gaza? There are all these questions about the border crossings, what's open, what isn't. At the hour that you and I are speaking here on Wednesday, the Rafah crossing, the main crossing between Gaza and Egypt, is not open. Can you begin to get remotely enough aid in?
MILIBAND: Well, we can begin. But we're measuring it in hours, not yet in weeks. Monday was a good day. Tuesday was a worse day. Wednesday, I'm waiting to hear the news. Monday was a good day because 600 trucks of food and medicine got in. And one piece of good news is that there is a coordinated plan for what the humanitarian agencies, led by the U.N., want to do.
KELLY: You said Monday was a good day because 600 trucks of aid got through. We are being told by a spokesperson for the U.N. office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs in Gaza that Israel has told them they'll only allow 300 aid trucks. Six hundred, that was a good day. That is also the bare minimum to avert further famine, further starvation in Gaza.
MILIBAND: Just for the benefit of your listeners, before October 7, 2023, there were about 500 trucks a day going in in steady state. We've got an enormous amount of ground to make up, so we need many weeks of 600 trucks, plus the commercial traffic. The U.N. figure for Tuesday was a bad figure, down to 150 or 200, I think. And so we are desperate that the feeding and treatment of people is not turned into a victim of the political struggle.
KELLY: Have you heard any hopeful news yet, you know, a story of a person who is eating today who didn't have food last week.
MILIBAND: Well, the hope comes from the fact that the conflict seems to be over. There's a hope of life, if you like. But we have to be ultrarealistic about this. This is an enormous multiyear, maybe even a multigenerational challenge to get enduring sustainable change. And we are absolutely clear that the humanitarian aid is the first step on the road to development. But if it becomes just the last step, then we're going to lose the hope that's been created.
KELLY: You sound hopeful that the ceasefire is holding, that the ceasefire will hold. Is that just hope, or is there something grounding that optimism? Why would this ceasefire hold when the last two have not?
MILIBAND: Well, the answer to that is very direct. There's more political commitment than there was before. I would also say, as a note of realism, journalists haven't been allowed in. And I'm not just saying this because I'm on your show.
KELLY: International journalists for the whole war have not been.
MILIBAND: My absolute fear is that actually, we're going to find things are worse than people realize, because what our staff say to me is, you have no idea. I mean, the numbers dead, the numbers injured are the bare minimum. And the danger that there are still bodies to be found, there's still destruction to be uncovered, I really worry about that because...
KELLY: That there are challenges we haven't even become aware of yet.
MILIBAND: The educated, humane, engaged staff that we have that I speak to, they've got fear in their eyes about the future, as well as hope.
KELLY: Let me push you, David Miliband, on how hard you will be pushing the United States. President Trump has been widely credited, has been praised for his personal involvement in getting this first phase of a peace deal over the line. How confident are you that the U.S. will stay the course and be a reliable partner for foreign aid?
MILIBAND: Well, the president deserves the credit for getting over the mountain and for ensuring that a ceasefire was declared. It's now his plan. And when something is his, he's really committed to it. So I'm hopeful that, notwithstanding the skepticism the administration has about foreign aid, in this case...
KELLY: This same president presides over an administration that has eliminated more than 80% of its international aid programs.
MILIBAND: Yeah.
KELLY: Since January.
MILIBAND: So that's why I say that. Two million clients of the International Rescue Committee have lost services that were previously being paid for. This is kids getting education in Afghanistan, refugees in South Sudan, from Sudan. So we know the cost of the aid cuts. But this is a plan that the president has put his own name on. And when he puts his name on something, there's a determination and a commitment. He doesn't do it lightly, clearly. He's got a lot invested in this now. And what we want to say to him is that we're there with him to make sure on the ground, the aid reaches the people who needs it. He's got massive challenges to help navigate on the security front, on the economic front. But when I heard him speaking on Monday, he wants to get it done. And we want to get it done, too.
KELLY: So to the question, how confident are you that the U.S. will be a reliable partner for a long-term peace in Gaza?
MILIBAND: Well, I think it's massively in the U.S. interests that this is not a running sore. I think it's massively in the U.S. interests that the political horizon is reinforced. And the only solution that anyone has ever found to this conflict has been for there to be a secure Israel that can live alongside a Palestinian state. This is a real Hail Mary pass that's been thrown for this region of the world that so many people care so much about. And we've got to get the real human values up front and center to see this through.
KELLY: David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee. Thank you.
MILIBAND: Thank you very much.
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