'While innocent people are dying, we cannot walk away' - Yorkshire aid worker 'haunted' by devastating scenes in Gaza

“The situation is worse than I could have imagined… if that is even possible,” says Kate, who is Deputy Country Director for Palestine with humanitarian organisation the World Food Programme (WFP).

“I’ve been in Syria and Ukraine, but this was the worst by far. I feel absolutely haunted by what I saw. It is easily the most nightmarish situation I’ve ever witnessed in my entire career.

“Every refugee situation is awful but usually people can seek some kind of safe shelter and some kind of humanitarian assistance on a regular, predictable basis.

"Syria was horrendous but at least people could leave. This is just not possible in Gaza.

“The people in Gaza are totally trapped in a 25-mile strip with simply no way of escaping. Everywhere we went people were saying how hungry they were.

“It’s the only time in my life I’ve been in meetings and even colleagues from partner agencies were asking for food because they are going hungry.

"One man asked for wheat flour for his daughter and explained ‘I have money, but I cannot buy this anywhere’. The risk of famine is serious unless we can get more aid in.”

Kate is helping spearhead the United Nations’ organisation’s life-saving support for civilians, which has been backed by £14.25million support from the UK Government since October 2023.

Her deployment came as International Development Minister Anneliese Dodds travelled to the region at the start of this month to announce a further £19million humanitarian funding for Gaza.

This includes £12million to the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the WFP.

UK Government funding through the WFP for the last financial year supported over 651,000 people with food assistance through food or cash vouchers, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) says.

UK funding this year will help the WFP to procure a further 4,465 metric tons of fortified wheat flour to help 451,000 severely food insecure people across Gaza.

Two emergency field hospitals run by frontline charity UK-Med and funded by the FCDO have treated more than 281,000 people since January.

The Disasters Emergency Committee Middle East humanitarian appeal raised over £32million from people in Britain, including a £10million aid match pledge from the UK Government.

However, the situation on the ground in Gaza remains dire.

Kate explains: “The area we were mainly visiting was Al-Mawasi next to Khan Yunis, which has the biggest refugee camp I’ve ever seen with the worst living conditions. There’s a total lack of proper tents and no water or sanitation facilities.

“The whole thing was just completely and utterly miserable. Nothing is functioning at all, anywhere. The level of destruction is just incomprehensible.

“We went to visit people we are supporting who are just sheltering in bombed out apartment blocks.

The walls are sloping and it’s not stable, but they have no choice. I felt really worried about all these kids living in massive piles of rubble with sharp pieces of metal sticking out.

“I vividly recall this apocalyptic scene with malnourished kids with no shoes crawling over rubble trying to find anything they might be able to sell so they can buy food, or find things to burn to keep warm.”

“Aid agencies are doing their best but the difficulty getting stuff in means we cannot do the job we are meant to be doing,” she adds. “Before the war there was an average of 200 trucks a day crossing the border.

"At the moment on a good day it might be 50. There are very few days where we get more than 20 trucks across the border…. It’s a fraction of what is needed.”

More than 300 aid workers have been killed since October 7, 2023 – the deadliest conflict by far for those providing humanitarian support.

Jerusalem-based Kate says: “It is honestly quite a sight when you cross the border and everything is destroyed. Tarmac roads have disappeared and you are just bumping over sand.

“There was bombing while I was there. It was close - maybe one kilometre from where we were. We could see the smoke and you could feel the windows reverberating from the blast waves.

“I found it really scary, but my colleagues were just carrying on like normal, as they’ve been there far longer and it has tragically become a normal soundtrack to life in Gaza.

“Our offices in Gaza have been destroyed and our staff have been moved multiple times with everyone else up and down the Strip.

“We had a guest house which was bombed at the end of August with staff inside, but thankfully we have not lost any colleagues.

"We’ve suffered a lot of attacks on our property, our warehouses and our vehicles.

“But while innocent civilians, including women and children, are dying and are really suffering, we cannot simply walk away.”