After going to the Gaza border and seeing aid get turned back, Helen Clark had withering words for NZ

Tuesday, 12 August 2025

A delegation from The Elders, a global organization advocating for peace, including Mary Robinson, former President of The Elders and former President of Ireland, and Helen Clark, Member of The Elders and former Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark has made a “heartbreaking” visit to the Gaza border, saying she had witnessed first-hand aid trucks being turned around by Israel.

Clark visited the Rafah Border Crossing - the sole crossing point between Egypt and Gaza - alongside former President of Ireland Mary Robinson.

The pair made the visit of behalf of The Elders, an independent group of leaders formed by Nelson Mandela in 2007.

Helen Clark and Mary Robinson speak to media at the border between Gaza and Egypt.

Clark said she saw trucks with food and medical supplies turned away by Israeli authorities and visited victims of the war in Al Arish hospital in Egypt.

A statement from The Elders said Clark and Robinson witnessed “massive quantities of food and medicines like ibuprofen ready for delivery to Gazans but blocked by Israeli authorities.

“It was heartbreaking to think that a short distance from where we stood at Rafah, people are being killed at food distribution sites and children are dying of starvation,” Clark said.

Helen Clark with a delegation from The Elders — a global organization advocating for peace — including Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland - at the Rafah border crossing speaking to a truck driver whose aid shipment was rejected by Israel.

“This war must end.”

New Zealand is yet to recognise Palestine as a state but Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced on Monday that Cabinet had met to discuss the issue, with Foreign Minister Winston Peters saying a decision would be reached by the end of September.

Luxon was that there was “no role for Hamas in any future Palestinian state”.

Speaking to RNZ’s Morning Report on Tuesday morning, Clark said that the international community - including New Zealand - could be doing more.

NZ seems to ‘stand for nothing’

“This is a catastrophic situation, and here we are in New Zealand somehow arguing some fine point about whether we should recognize we need to be adding our voice to the need for this catastrophe to stop,” Clark told RNZ.

Palestinians mourn their relative who was killed while trying to reach aid trucks entering northern Gaza Strip through the Zikim crossing with Israel, at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

“When you see an unfolding genocide, you have a responsibility to act,” she said, describing the US position that recognising Palestine as a state rewards Hamas as “pathetically empty words“.

“This is not the New Zealand I’ve known,” Clark said, claiming New Zealand was 'cuddling right back up again to Washington DC“.

“We now really seem to stand for nothing except you know somehow wanting to save our own skin in a tariff war,” she added.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters said on Monday ministers would be taking into account the views held around the country.

“It is only right that this complicated issue be approached calmly, cautiously and judiciously,” his statement said.

“Over the next month, we look forward to canvassing this broad range of views before taking a proposal to Cabinet.”