Kay Burley Spars With Israeli Spox Demanding ‘Benchmark’ For Gaza Aid Mission: ‘It’s Kids Not Starving To Death’

Sky News host Kay Burley challenged Israeli spokesperson Tal Heinrich on whether the country was doing a “good enough job” in delivering basic humanitarian aid to Gazans, amid on-the-ground reports from the World Health Organisation (WHO) that “severe levels of malnutrition” in the territory have now caused the deaths of more than a dozen Palestinian children.

The interview on Thursday grew heated after Heinrich insisted that the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) were “doing a better job than any other Western military in history” at getting aid supplies to Gazan civilians on the ground, given that Israel was “still facing an existential genocidal threat.”

Burley: “Do you think that you are doing a good job in making sure enough food is getting into Gaza?”

Heinrich: We’re doing a better job than any other Western military in the history of urban…”

Burley: “Do you think you’re doing a good enough job?”

Heinrich: “Is the benchmark perfection?

Burley: “No, it’s kids not starving to death.”

Heinrich: “But what’s the benchmark?”

Burley: “I’m asking you. I do the questions. If you don’t mind, you answer them. And my question is, do you think you are doing a good enough job in stopping kids from starving to death in Gaza?”

Heinrich: “If you judge Israel to perfection, the answer is no, nobody’s perfect. But if you take what Israel is doing and you look at what the UK, the US, the International Coalition to Defeat ISIS has done, if you look at historical wars, Israel is doing a much better job in each and every category, not only in the facilitation of humanitarian aid. If you look at the civilian to combatant casualty ratio, the scope, at the pace in which we take out the terrorists and dismantle the terror infrastructure. And it’s not just us saying it. It’s not really important to say. It’s an array of British and American experts, military experts, saying that we compare favourably with the conduct of Western armies, especially vis-a-vis the challenges that we’re dealing with.”

Burley: “Yeah, [Foreign Secretary] Lord [David] Cameron says that the UK’s patience is running thin. [United States Vice President] Kamala Harris says they need a significant increase in the flow of aid.”

Heinrich: “Well, we’re fighting this war to stay alive. We faced and we are still facing an existential genocidal threat.”

At the weekend the WHO made its first inspection visits to Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals in Gaza since early October and revealed harrowing conditions.

The organisation reported “grim findings” including “severe levels of malnutrition” that had led to the deaths of at least 10 children, along with acute shortages of food, fuel, and medical supplies. The dire situation extends to demolished hospital buildings, exacerbating the already dire humanitarian crisis.

The Hamas-run health ministry says it confirmed the deaths of at least 15 children from malnutrition and dehydration at Kamal Adwan hospital, with another child passing away in Rafah.

Warnings of famine have loomed large in the spiralling humanitarian crisis, with the United Nations warning that nearly 576,000 people in Gaza, constituting a quarter of the population, face catastrophic food insecurity. Adele Khodr of UNICEF lamented the preventable nature of the crisis, condemning the “man-made, predictable” death toll.