Matthias Schmale, UNRWA’s director of Gaza operations, speaks during a news conference in front of the agency’s headquarters in Gaza City, in May.
Adel Hana / AP
hide captions
switch captions
Adel Hana / AP
Matthias Schmale, UNRWA’s director of Gaza operations, speaks during a news conference in front of the agency’s headquarters in Gaza City, in May.
Adel Hana / AP
JERUSALEM – Matthias Schmale was the highest-ranking international representative based in the Gaza Strip before his term ended in shock.
In 11 days conflict This May, between militants in Gaza and Israel, Israeli warplanes bombed the streets around the headquarters of his United Nations aid agency, targeting tunnels believed to be insurgents. troops underground, and caused part of the car to fly into the yard of the United Nations campus.
Later, after the war, Schmale angered the Gazans for a Interview with Israeli TV in which he is said to have praised the “great sophistication” and “accuracy” of the Israeli attacks. His Palestinian employees protested outside his headquarters and Hamas, the hardline Islamist group that governs the territory, said its officers would no longer guarantee his safety. He left for Jerusalem in early June, never returning to Gaza.
Schmale, 59, is used to fluctuations. The son of a Lutheran missionary from Germany, he spent his childhood in South Africa, where he witnessed the final days of apartheid, before moving to Germany. and see Berlin Wall fall. Four years of directing operations in Gaza for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRWA, have put him at the center of another geopolitical conflict, navigating between enemies not common sky team.
The rulers of Gaza’s Hamas, committed to armed conflict against Israel, are designated terrorists by Israel, the United States and the European Union. Israel and Egypt imposed a tight blockade on the territory’s 2 million people. Palestinians describe it as an open-air prison, with restricted travel and exports, high poverty and unemployment, and dire humanitarian conditions. After the war in May, Israel eased some restrictions on Gaza as it negotiated a lasting truce with Hamas.
Schmale had to liaise with both Hamas and Israel to ensure UNRWA could continue its mission of providing food, schools and healthcare to a large portion of Gaza’s population, who are descendants of refugees. Palestine after Israel’s 1948 founding war.
Israel claims UNRWA’s huge mission, to give refugee status to generations of Palestinians instead of resettling them, leaving Palestinians to maintain their dependence on aid and the dream of returning to lost lands. of Israel. Schmale said UNRWA must continue its activities until Israelis and Palestinians resolve their conflicts through a political solution that addresses questions around refugees and the future of Gaza.
Trump Administration stop sponsoring agency, President Biden is restored but international contributions to UNRWA are low as countries focus on other global hotspots.
UNRWA now has a new director in Gaza and Schmale is looking forward to his next job, coordinating UN humanitarian operations in Nigeria. Hours before leaving Jerusalem on Tuesday, Schmale sat down with NPR to discuss some of the sensitive issues he handles, from his controversial Israeli TV interview to a question about Hamas tunnels are said to be used to protect militants and move missiles around Gaza, to criticism of UNRWA’s mission.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
The remains of a building are seen after an Israeli air strike destroyed it in Gaza City, May 22.
Khalil Hamra / AP
hide captions
switch captions
Khalil Hamra / AP
The remains of a building are seen after an Israeli air strike destroyed it in Gaza City, May 22.
Khalil Hamra / AP
Do you regret what you said about the “accuracy” of the Israeli attacks?
Yes and no. The controversial interview you are referring to on Israeli television happened the day after the war stopped. So I’ve been so tired of, you know, I’ve given, I think, 70 interviews up to that point, and I wish I’d made it clearer the points I’m trying to make. I don’t think the essence of what I’ve said is wrong, but I should have made it more clear.
What I had in mind was an image: … There was a leveled house in a sea of houses. You can hardly put a millimeter between houses. The remaining houses around this bombed house are more or less intact.
It was unbelievable how they could take down a house in a sea of houses with such precision. But in that house were 10 civilians, eight children and two women, including five children who attended one of our schools. So how does anyone think I’m justifying it by calling it a precision attack?
All three roads around your block are bombed by Israel. Doesn’t that mean warriors could have run tunnels under your compound?
We don’t know that for sure.
One of our schools… is less than half a kilometer from our house, you can see it from our blocks very close, [Israeli] the army bombed, put two rockets on that schoolyard.
They destroyed a tunnel underneath that school. And again, with precision. They hit exactly one end of the tunnel and the other end of the tunnel. So they basically closed it. Very clear. They know exactly what they are hitting.
Many people have told me during my 4 years, there are tunnels everywhere and that is a safe assumption.
Whether or not there’s a tunnel underneath our main compound, I can’t say, you know, that’s speculation at this point. But yeah, why are they hitting so close if there’s not something there?
To many observers, Gaza often seems to be on the brink of disaster, and critics accuse UNRWA of perpetuating this inescapable state. Is that true?
One way to explain this is, are we Band-Aids?
Currently, we educate 290,000 children. It was extremely gratifying. … That just gives them a basis to live on and a chance to change.
We do not want to continue to provide basic services that do not lead to … political solutions [to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict]. It is a constant balance that one has to struggle with.
Children play at a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRWA, where many displaced Palestinian families seek refuge in Gaza City amid air strikes and Daily bombardment by Israeli forces, on May 19.
Majdi Fathi / NurPhoto via Getty Images
hide captions
switch captions
Majdi Fathi / NurPhoto via Getty Images
Children play at a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRWA, where many displaced Palestinian families seek refuge in Gaza City amid air strikes and Daily bombardment by Israeli forces, on May 19.
Majdi Fathi / NurPhoto via Getty Images
Some things in Gaza are better now than they were before the war. Israel has given Palestinians more work permits and eased other restrictions. As a Gazan, one might come to the conclusion that violence will work.
That’s part of the sad reality, which I think for the people of Gaza, life experience is: the crisis gets your attention.
Another thing that stuck with me was hearing people I’ve come across as moderate, pragmatic Palestinians say to me, “You know, we never agreed to anything with Hamas. But in a relationship In this particular situation, we agree that something must be done, “about reacting to what happened in Al-Aqsa Mosque, what is happening in [the Jerusalem neighborhood of] Sheikh Jarrah.
After the conflict in May, we should all be worried if moderates start saying, we don’t like Hamas, but on this we agree that at least they are doing something. That will worry us all and need to rethink the aspect: the solution must be a correct political process.
Can you imagine Israel and Egypt lifting the blockade on Gaza while Hamas is still there?
That seems like a pretty far-fetched possibility. As you know, [Israel and Egypt] both argue the privacy clause…that it’s the security situation and concerns that don’t allow it.
I have to say, you know, I grew up in racist South Africa, and if I were a 15-year-old kid, someone would say to me, “The person most of the world thinks is a terrible person. Dad sitting in prison on Robben Island will one day step out and be President Mandela, “I would say, ‘Let’s be real’.”
I lived in Berlin when it was divided, and if six months before the wall fell, someone would say, this wall will be gone within the next year, again, I’m sure I’d laugh and say, you know, come on.
I’ve said this to colleagues in Gaza sometimes, “Who am I? I’ve never lived under a blockade like you to really know what you’re going through. But one thing I can tell you. is don’t give up. You know, you never know.”
What will you miss most about Gaza?
There is great food in Gaza and there are really great fish restaurants. People, you know, I’ve met amazing people.
A 14-year-old has now gone through four wars, with all of these traumas. However, you go to our schools and you see – you would think you were going to school anywhere in the world. You know, teachers love their jobs, children love to learn.
