Mr. Elder, the UN Security Council called for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip at the beginning of the week. What has changed there since then?

The Security Council's decision was a sign of hope. But hope is drowned out by the bombs. Today I was in a hospital in the Gaza Strip and saw children with terrible war injuries. Shrapnel wounds, burns, fractures. All through bombings since the ceasefire resolution.

You have been in the Gaza Strip for a week and a half and have also visited the north. What is the situation there?

I accompanied transports bringing humanitarian aid to the north, including maternity kits, vaccines, vitamins and some supplies for severely malnourished children. A famine is looming in the area – one that is entirely man-made and entirely avoidable. Because there are border crossings there that could be opened. It is very frustrating to see mothers bending over children who are as thin as paper. And then remember that there is a crossing ten or fifteen minutes away through which help could come.

Do you have direct contact with residents?

Every day, for example in the hospitals and clinics we visit. When I talk to people, they always tell me that they need water and food and medicine and that the world needs to know that. Obviously I know all this, so why are they telling me this? Because they cannot imagine that the world knows what is happening to them and yet does nothing.

What is the specific situation of children for whom UNICEF is responsible?

I don't think we've ever seen so many children who have lost their entire family. We estimate that there are 17,000 children separated from their parents or orphaned. The family structures are very strong. Large families and communities take them in. But not being with the family after what they've been through, without food or school, and then being under fire night after night – it's indescribable what that's like for a child. Children are suffering and they are dying now because they are starving. “Starving” – a word we almost never use. Because of the decisions made by people in positions of power.

However, the question of how more aid can and should be brought into the Gaza Strip and distributed there is a hotly debated topic.

Which it shouldn't be. But hundreds of trucks are piled up on the other side of the border. In the case of Unicef, the goods have to be reloaded four times. We have to put in an enormous amount of work to obtain approvals and there are always arbitrary rejections. If we take something to the north of the Gaza Strip, it could take our convoy five hours to get there and two days to get approval.

How dangerous is it to bring aid from the south to the north?

It's only thirty or forty kilometers. But in the first ten kilometers you drive through an area where a million people now live. The streets are completely overcrowded. It's dangerous for civilians when so many trucks drive through there. In the north you pass tens of thousands of people who are desperate and hungry. In our case, we announce over the loudspeaker that we have loaded medical supplies and then they wave us through. When groceries are delivered, things can look different. There is also a real danger for truck drivers. The North is probably the most dangerous place in the world to deliver aid right now. People die trying to get help. And warehouses are bombed. As I said, it doesn't have to be that way. There are border crossings just a few minutes away. Instead, UNRWA, the backbone of humanitarian aid here, has now been excluded from delivering aid to the north. This only accelerates the catastrophe.

They are now in Rafah, in the very south. How safe is it there?

You don't feel safe here either. There are nights when you're trying to sleep and then the whole building is rocked by explosions. I can't imagine what it must be like for children after five or six months. That's why a ceasefire would be so important. So that a mother and her child can go to sleep knowing that they will wake up again the next morning.