Connections: Episode 106

Famine in Gaza

Mouin Rabbani in Conversation with Sam Rose

Join us on Sunday, 27 July for a conversation with Sam Rose of UNRWA about the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip. This episode of Connections will examine the causes and consequences of rapidly accelerating famine in Gaza, and the campaign against those seeking to prevent it.

Connections offers timely and informative interviews on current events and broader policy questions, as well as themes relevant to knowledge production. It combines journalism, analysis, and scholarship. 

Guest

Sam Rose is the Acting Director of UNRWA Affairs in the Gaza Strip, a role he took up in December 2024. He has worked for UNRWA in Gaza since January 2024, and prior to this served as UNRWA’s Director of Planning, with responsibility for the Agency’s operational and strategic planning across its five fields of operation. Rose has worked in the field of international development and humanitarian affairs for more than two decades, including roles at UNRWA, the UK Department of International Development (DFID), and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), primarily in the Middle East (Egypt, the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Jordan, Yemen) and South Asia. Whilst at DFID he led the UK government’s humanitarian response to the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal and coordinated protection work in Sierra Leone during the Ebola epidemic. A UK national, Rose has a Master of Arts degree in French and Russian, and a Master of Science degree in Demograph

Host

Mouin Rabbani is a researcher, analyst, and commentator specialising in Palestinian affairs, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the contemporary Middle East. He has among other positions previously served as Principal Political Affairs Officer with the Office of the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Head of Middle East with the Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation, and Senior Middle East Analyst and Special Advisor on Israel-Palestine with the International Crisis Group. Rabbani is Co-Editor of Jadaliyya, and a Contributing Editor of Middle East Report.