UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : OCHA Press Conference: Martin Griffiths on the crisis in OPT / Israel

Good afternoon everyone and good morning to those who are joining us from New York.

And also welcome to everybody listening in and following on Web TV where this is live cast.

I'm very happy that we have with us today Mr.

Martin Griffiths, the Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.

We will hear from him first now in this live part of the of the briefing on the situation Israel and the Occupied Palestine, Palestinian territory.

He will have some short opening remarks and then we'll take a few of your questions.

It will not be that long, but we of course prioritise to have your questions asked.

So without further ado, Martin, I will hand over to you.

Dude does that.

Is that am I now on?

Is that on?

Yeah.

OK, Good.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much indeed.

Yes.

Today marks two months to the day since the start of the Gazan tragedy, that day, October the 7th, with the terrible events that happened to the people of Israel living near Gaza and that led to the terrible events that continue to this day.

And the message that we have been giving, we here being the humanitarian community, and I represent the humanitarian community writ large, not just the United Nations, is that we do not have a humanitarian operation in southern Gaza that can be called by that name anymore.

That the pace of the military ******* in southern Gaza is a repeat of the ******* in northern Gaza.

That it has made no place safe for civilians in southern Gaza, which had been a cornerstone of the humanitarian plan to protect civilians and thus to provide aid to them.

But without places of safety, that plan is in tatters.

And So what we have at the moment in Gaza, northern Gaza, even more difficult.

But in Gaza, where we have trucks still crossing daily through the Rafah crossing is at best humanitarian opportunism to try to reach through some roads which are still accessible, which haven't been mined or destroyed to some people who can be found, where some food or some water or some other supply can be given.

But it's a programme of opportunism, It's erratic, it's undependable, and frankly, it's not sustainable.

It's as a result of this declaration and judgement by the humanitarian community, the global humanitarian community, that the Secretary General of the United Nations, as you know, wrote yesterday to the President of the Security Council, invoking for the first time ever in his tenure as Secretary General, Article 99 of the Charter, which speaks of the ****** to international peace and security of a specific event as raised by and in the judgement of the Secretary General.

Now, I don't want to end these opening remarks without saying one more important thing, and that is this, that even while we have said enough done, finish, stop the fighting, let's have that immediate ceasefire, that doesn't mean to say that humanitarians are themselves running for cover.

We're still negotiating and with some promising signs at the moment, access through Keresh Shalom, that other crossing, as you know, to the West of Rafa from Israel into Gaza, which has been such a feature of discussion of these many weeks.

And there are some promising signs now that that may be able to open soon.

And we're still at it.

We are still in Gaza.

UNRWA is still in Gaza, my office is still there.

We are still unloading trucks in the Rafah crossing.

Well, what we don't have is any sense of clarity of planning, is any sense of what's going to happen tomorrow.

And to be specific, none of us can see where this will end.

None of us can see where the people crammed into that southern pocket of Gaza will go.

Those 2 million people, what do they think their future are?

I have just come from a meeting with my own staff around the world, buried in the tragedy of conflicts, and they have spoken to me this morning now about two things.

One is that in Gaza there is no exit for the people of Gaza and the other is in Gaza.

As a result, hope for the future is at its best, at a premium.

So our humanitarian programme is no longer a functioning one.

It is one of response to opportunity.

Yet we are still trying to build a new access point and the Secretary General has clearly, evidently and quickly renewed his advocacy for what must be the only serious policy response to this globally, which is silence the guns.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Under Secretary General Griffith.

We will now take your questions, Reuters first and then we go to Long.

Mr Griffiths, a question regarding the promising signs on the possible opening of the Keralaam Karen Shalam crossing.

What are these promising signs?

Thank you.

Thank you very much indeed.

Very specific.

I mean, we, we've been arguing in favour obviously for the opening of Kara Shalom for months.

I mean, not for months, for weeks.

These negotiations have been taking place in a committee called the Kogat Committee, which meets daily and nightly, where the Israeli government is represented, as is the US by the way, as well as the Egyptians and the United Nations.

My own office is present.

And in that Melia, in that environment, we have been arguing for the opening of Karishnam, not just as an opening to allow trucks to go through there, to then go through Rafa and then up into Gaza, but to go straight through Karishnam up into the northern parts of Gaza or of the need is greatest.

Now of late, in these most recent days in those discussions, there have been some signs that the Member states related to that.

Egypt and Israel obviously are related to that, have become much more open to the idea of opening correctional, probably not in one go, but certainly gradually.

Secondly, I have a representative as we speak in Jordan already lining up the potential deliveries of aid by land from Jordan, which could come straight through from Jordan over the Allenbury Bridge straight to Koreshchenon.

That's one entry point to Koreshchenon.

If we get that well, it'll be the first miracle we've seen for some weeks, but it will be a huge boost to the logistical process and logistical base of a humanitarian operation.

It doesn't mean to say that it will solve the security problems that of course I've spoken about, but it would change the nature of humanitarian access.

Thank you very much, Laurent.

Yeah.

Thank you, Lawrence, your.

Swiss news agency.

If that doesn't happen and if the situation go goes on like.

It is today.

How long do you?

Think.

There will be still a possibility to go on with at least that humanitarian opportunism and how long the.

Will the the?

Palestinian population.

Bear it.

Thank you.

Part of your question, I'm sorry.

I think the second part of your question is, is the killer, how long will the Palestinian people of Gaza bear this?

Because they're being pushed further and further South.

They tell everyone every day.

We tell everyone every day.

There's no place of safety.

There's no safe zones.

People aren't even talking about safe zones anymore.

So they're being pushed S we know Israel has a very firm policy of no entry for the people of Gaza into Israel for reasons I think we can all understand.

But that pressure, that pressure will grow exponentially over these days.

The humanitarian activities, as you say humanitarian opportunism it it can't be a humanitarian programme that would be to to ample a description of it that will continue so long as there are people in Gaza there and trucks that can cross into into Rafa that will not stop.

The people of Gaza should know, do know that the aid agencies that they have relied on, God help us these many decades will not desert them at this time.

But the the prospects for safety for those million or more people forced into that southern pocket.

I your guess is surely as good as mine.

Though we ain't seen the end of this movie.

We'll see more of that and we will see more pressure.

And we haven't even begun to talk about the impact of the increase in violence in the West Bank, the worry about violence in in, in, in Lebanon, the anxieties in Jordan of an outflow into Jordan.

I was in Amman last week with Their Majesties convening a very practical operational meeting about what needs to be done to help the people of Gaza where they are.

What's happening in Gaza is forcing the people of Gaza to choose where to be and to choose on the basis of violence and pressure.

Thank you, Martin.

We will come to you, Catherine.

But I just wanted to say I can see people are raising their hands.

I hope that we can take a couple of questions online on this as well.

But over to you.

Thank you, Catherine Fionn, Combo Conga, Franz Vancatra.

Thank you for being with us.

A question related to security.

We've seen recently that civilians.

WHO or?

Humanitarians, journalists are openly.

Targeted by Israeli.

Forces, how will you be sure that the convoys with humanitarian aid will be not, will not be targeted?

What will be the the evidence that will be given by the Israeli forces?

Thank you.

I'm on now.

Yeah, Well, also it is a very good question because plans for deliveries, convoys, whatever, although a convoy sounds a bit surreal in the context of the current situation in southern Gaza, are discussed every day and every night in this committee that I've spoken of, the Kogat Committee.

But relying on the safety of those convoys is something that is also at a premium.

Also in doubt because there has been so much evidence of attacks, for example, on people moving they thought safely from the north, remember from hospitals in the north-south and yet been bombed on their way South.

And that's why this notion, this statement that there is no place of safety in Gaza relates also to humanitarian operations, which means that if you're planning a humanitarian delivery in Gaza today, you can, you must.

You must plan for the likelihood that it will be interrupted, that it may be attacked, that it may be looted, that it may be stopped, it may be diverted, that it may not succeed.

You cannot, as we do in most other places around the world, assume that a plan that has been agreed between parties is one that will go through without incident.

And I think that uncertainty about the likelihood of aid reaching people in need is yet another aspect of the absence of hope for the people of Gaza because they don't know when their next aid will come from and where from.

What they do know is that the destruction of the health system, and I think Doctor Tedros today has made an announcement of the demise of yet another hospital, of the few remaining hospitals that work, that the erosion, that elimination, the destruction of the health system has meant that disease, hunger, deprivation, challenges, bombing as a cause of death and wounding of the people of Gaza.

There are two horsemen of the apocalypse in Gaza today.

Conflict, of course, but also disease.

And that will only get worse as we are unable to sustain any supplies to hospitals, any health, any safe water, desalina tion and so on and so forth.

So the vectors, the signs, the pointers are going in the wrong direction.

All of them.

Thank you very much.

We can, I think we will take a couple of questions online and then I'm afraid we have to wrap up this part of the of the briefing first to Dina ABI Saab and then after that to imaging folks from the BBC.

Dina, over to you.

Yes, thank you.

Can you hear me?

Hello.

Can you hear me?

Please go ahead.

Thank you.

Actually, today we saw photos and videos showing the arrest of dozens of Palestinians in northern Gaza, including a journalist called Dia al Gahlut.

He's one of my friends.

I saw him in one of the videos among the detainees.

Do you have any ability to know the fate of those people or to deliver, deliver aid or help to them?

And does Israel cooperate with you regarding, providing information about the detainees since the 7th of October?

And we know the number of those detainees are more than 2700 people.

At the same time we hear, we hear the United Nations repeatedly talking about Palestine, about Israeli detainee detained in, in, in Gaza.

How do you classify Palestinians detained by Israel since October the 7th?

And are they?

Why don't you talk about them at the same level as the Israeli detainees?

Thank you.

I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not somebody getting into defining what's the name for one person and the name for another for a humanitarian.

People who are in need are all civilians in need unless they're combatants, whether they're detained or not.

The release of hostages and also of Palestinian prisoners, which happened in that seven day pause last week showed us very clearly in every single take of their reuniting with their family, reminded us what humanity, what humanity is.

A 7 day pause also allowed us to do some repair of systems, restocking of plants, reparation and aid.

We do not distinguish as humanitarian agencies in terms of need between those detained by either side.

We want hostages released.

We have said it every time we say that publicly.

We decry that's a painfully weak word.

We deplore the taking of those hostages back on October the 7th, we deplore the detention of civilians, we deplore the killing of civilians more than either, and we deplore the lack of our ability to function effectively for the benefit of those civilians, but we do not discriminate according to nationality.

Thank you, Martin.

Imogen, you will get the last question, I'm afraid.

Over to you.

Thanks very much.

It's a couple, I hope you don't mind.

I mean, you were talking about the situation in Gaza and obviously your focus is on the short term.

But I'm just wondering whether you you look at what's happening, if you you think Gaza it can ever be livable.

In the foreseeable future given given the destruction.

And my other question is really about your, your trust with with with Israel, your relationship of trust because the UN resident coordinator, you know, she's not had her, her visa is not going to be renewed.

There's been quite a lot of what here in Geneva people would say is misinformation, even disinformation about the role of humanitarian agencies, including the UN.

I mean, what's, what's your feeling?

How do you approach that?

Must be quite awkward.

Is this occasionally awkward?

But I visited Israel now about 10 days ago, had meetings with Israeli officials and they were very constructive.

They introduced me, by the way, to some of the families of the hostages, which was very important for me to be able to speak to them and hear their direct experience.

The Israeli contingent, which is in that negotiating committee that I mentioned earlier, COGAT, negotiates constructively.

Every day is not absent.

It's always present, as is my office, of course, as is the Egyptian representatives as well as the US representatives.

So we continue to negotiate, as we do everywhere in the world, on the basis of humanitarian principles and with humanitarian aspirations.

Now I have publicly said that the IT is wrong to decry the reputation of my colleague, the humanitarian coordinator Lynn Hastings, for whom I have a great respect and who leads our team in the occupied territories and who's done so for some time.

Not always easy job, always, always demanding, always requiring neutrality.

And Lynn is one of those who has all those values in very in a very good place.

So it is always distressing for me, as it has been in a very different way, for the Secretary General to be criticised for what we believe is doing our job.

But we will continue to do so.

And although there may be awkward moments, there are also moments of achievement.

And that's why I'm was glad to say earlier on that there are those promising signs that I mentioned, which are promising signs in negotiations with the Israeli authorities over the opening of Kereshanom.

Let us let us not lose our faith in the possibilities of humanity.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Martin.

I'm afraid that I will have to close this live stream part of the briefing.

So thank you very much.

Mr Griffiths, Thank you very much for your questions.

However, for those reporters who are joining us on on the Zoom link, please stay on board because we will go into another briefing now about the global humanitarian overview and that part of the briefing will be under embargo.

So we'll just take a very brief moment for technical reasons.

OCHA Press Conference: Martin Griffiths on the crisis in OPT / Israel - 07 December 2023