Happy to see you again today for this press conference of Mr Philip Lazzarini, who's of course the UNRWA Commissioner General.
He will give us some introductory remarks on to update us on the situation, the OPT and then we will take questions.
Philippe, you have the floor.
Thank you so much and again, a pleasure to be with you.
We have this kind of regular meeting here in Geneva.
It becomes an habit and unfortunately, each time the situation in the region, in Gaza, in the West Bank, but also now in Lebanon is getting more so.
But let me start to tell you why I'm here this week.
I did not come here to provide briefing for member states or whatever.
For the first time, the agency decided to have its advisory Commission meeting outside of the region and we have decided to have it in in in the Gaza.
So we have two advisory Commission a year with about 40 member states represented in this advisory Commission.
And it was the first time we were meeting in person since the beginning of the war in Gaza.
Basically during this this session we have obviously discussed about the attack UNWA is under.
What are the motivation behind hit?
What, what, what, what, what?
Basically, we know that part of the reason of the targeting of the agency, including through legislative effort and the political statement, is related to the refugee status of the Palestinian refugees that many would like to see being stripped.
We have also warned the member of the Advisory Commission that it would be a mistake to see this attack only through the lens of a bilateral relation between UNWA and Israel.
That much more is at stake and if we succeed with UNWA, there will be also other entities which will then be exposed.
And the risk behind it is that we create a new standard for other complex emergencies in the future.
And hence my call to the member of the Advisory Commission, but also to the Member States in general, to strongly push back on this effort.
I have also discussed with a member of the Advisory Commission about the critical role the agency can play and is playing now remain the backbone of the broader humanitarian response in Gaza.
But I also do believe that today we will start a transition a day in between, the day leading to the day after.
The agency will have absolutely critical contribution to do, especially when it comes to the resumption of education and the Primary Health.
And we had a full session dedicated to education to look at how this could have been rolled out in in Gaza.
I was also asking the member state to do whatever is possible to shield the politically the agency and to make sure that whenever there is an agreement on any type of road map transition, that the role of the agency be also specifically mentioned.
Now, when it comes to the field or the latest, I know that you have quite a lot of information today.
You heard about the IPC which was issued in Rome and which will be further discussed in New York at the noon briefing.
But to tell you the truth, there is very little positive news to share with you and also very, very little positive impact on what we had a week 10 days ago as being daily tactical pause to facilitate the human turn supply into the Gaza stripper.
Last night, again, a school has been hit in at the level of the beach camper which is on the northern part of Gaza.
And reportedly we have heard about 12 people killed, 22 would have been injured.
But this bring also the total of our premises which have been hit or damaged or targeted since the beginning of the war to 190, which is more than half the premises and the infrastructure that we have in the Gaza Strip.
And as you know, this premises and this shelter are also used by the population to seek what remains are the possible protection.
But more than 500 people so far have been killed while seeking the UN protection.
So that's that's add in fact to my call to the member of the advisory Commission and other member states.
We are not only on the political or legislative or smearing a campaign attacker, but on the ground the UN and Anwar has also been targeted.
We have paid a heavy price.
More than 200 human turn staff have been killed, among them 193 only from my own organisation and, and, and this is also the reason why I believe that we need more than the welcome Security Council resolution two weeks ago on the protection of humanitarian aid workers.
We need to complement this with proper mechanism of investigation and accountability.
Now when it comes to the aid delivery, it's I have to say it's becoming more and more complicated.
It has been extraordinary excruciating over the last few weeks to bring aid.
Far too many trucks have been looted, have not reached properly destination, the number of crossing remains far too limited.
And basically we are confronted nowadays to a near total breakdown of law and order and with a truck driver being regularly threatened or assaulted and less and less willing to move assistance from the border to our warehouses and warehouses to the people.
In addition of that, you might have heard about the cigarette smuggling, which is the latest type of smuggling taking place in Gaza, where we have been reported that one cigarette cost between 20 and $30.00.
So you multiply by the number of cigarettes in one pack and then la cartouche and that gives you in fact the value of this cigarette in, in Gaza.
We yes, yesterday, for example, just to, to, to tell you how precarious the situation is, even in terms of resources, we had only 30 litres of remaining gasoline and all our armoured vehicle in the Gaza Striper do function on gasoline.
And basically yesterday we were in a situation where our international staff was not able to move properly.
I mean, Needless to say that our coal is always the same coal and has been ******** and repeated so many times.
We need sustainable, meaningful, uninterrupted it in the Gaza Striper if we want to reverse the hunger situation.
And you saw the latest APC, one in five, a person living in a catastrophic nutritional situation.
Then the acute malnutrition impacts nearly the entire population in Gaza, more than 90%.
And between those being in emergency and catastrophic situation and catastrophic means risk of famine is here at any time between now and September, we have in total more than 1,000,000 people.
So our efforts will have to continue and clearly the environment today is not conducive for us to fully reverse the trend we have observant in now.
Maybe just one or two comment on the children.
Also an international organisation having saved the children has issued a report on the children.
Again, the figures are quite staggering there.
They're talking about 4000 children missing, missing and 17,000 being unaccompanied, so more than 20,000.
And you add this to the reported 14,000 children who have been killed since the beginning of the war.
And you take on some into consideration that basically we have everyday 10 children who are losing one leg or two legs on average.
This gives you an idea of the scope of the type of childhood a child can have in, in, in, in Gaza just to flag.
Also, we talk a lot about Gaza.
Of course, we are all very concerned about the situation also in the West Bank, where we keep saying that a kind of silent war is taking place.
If there wouldn't be Gaza today, the West Bank would hit the headline.
More than 500 people have been killed since October 7.
But what also striking when we go to the West Bank is the the, the, the, the intensity of the operation taking place in the refugee camp or in the villages.
Two weeks ago I visited one of them into Karim and sometimes it looks like a war zone because of security operation taking place end up most of the time now with the destruction of neighbourhood, the destruction of public infrastructure and so on.
We talked also a lot today about, and I wouldn't stop here maybe after about the funding situation of the agency.
You know that before October 7, the we were always talking in fact about the funding situation of the agency, the only agency functioning on a negative cash flow.
For more than 4-5 years we have suffered by the absence of attention on the Palestinian Israeli conflict.
Over the last 10 years our resources have eroded and we had more and more a mismatch between what we are expected to deliver and we should never, never forget that.
Unwise, unique because we are asked to provide government like services, but we completely depend on voluntary contribution of the member States and hence when the Member States are not prioritising this part of the world or are not prioritising our own war, we have we, we, we start to suffer.
We had to muddle through a lot.
It had an impact on the quality of oil services over the last 10 years.
And then we had October 7, October seven with extraordinary staggering needs in the Gaza striper, for which I have to say we had a good support.
But after that we had January 26th, the allegation with our 12 staffer, a temporary pause by a number of countries and you know the story.
Two months later, the Katherine Koduna report has been fully published.
Since all the donor have come back, we have some new donors, we have the strong generosity from the public, but all this does not compensate the suspension of our main donor, the United States.
And even if we would have the United States, we would definitely not be in a in a sustainable pass when it comes to predictable funding for the agency.
So it remains a struggle.
It's still part of the identify existential ****** of the agency and a big chunk of the discussion we had with a member of the Advisory Commission was very much related to funding.
So I think I will stop here and thank you.
We thank you, Philip for for this introductory remarks.
There are quite a few questions.
Sorry, I've seen hence, yeah, I I give the floor in the in the order I've seen it.
And I'll start with Radio France international Jeremy.
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So you said that you have money until the the month of August, but do you have absolute numbers on how much, What is the funding gap?
And also in previous press conferences, you mentioned that four countries still were posting it's help to UNRWA, I think United States, Austria, Switzerland, United Kingdom, some of them have already restarted the, the financing.
Regarding the funding gap, what I was sharing also today was the fund the, the gap when it comes to our emergency appeal.
We have in fact 2 emergency appeal in the region in addition of the appeal related to our regular budget programme budget.
Now the programme, when I was saying until end of August, I was referring to our regular budget, which is a backbone of the organisation which basically covers the 40,000 staff.
We have cash until end of August and basically we still have a shortfall of about hundred $140 million to end the to, to, to go to bridge the end of the year.
Now when it comes to the emergency appeal, we are between 1518% funded when it comes to the appeal on the occupied Palestinian territory.
And basically we are funded at the same level when it comes to Syria also about 15%.
So these two appeals are significantly underfunded, which prevent us, for example, to do cash distribution or food distribution in Syria and Lebanon and in Gaza.
Obviously we had an appeal of $1.2 billion recently.
We are far from the needs we were expecting to cover.
So this morning, again an appeal to the member of the Advisory Commission to get mobilised.
The next donor event will be in New York on July 12th, organised by the President of the GA.
And we will after that have now the donor event in the New York in the margin of the **** level week.
And this for us an important event.
Hoping that new contribution be also announced today.
We are less funded proportionally on our programme budget, the regular budget, than we were last year at the same time.
Do you have a follow up, Antonio?
Just because I asked also about the countries that are still possible.
Sorry, last time we had four countries.
Today it's down to two country.
I'm also happy to say that all the EU member states are back in addition of the European Commission.
So the two remaining, the United States, as we know will not come before March 2025.
And the second country, which has not yet taken a decision but they are in election mode right now, are the UK.
I'm wondering if you could say whether the cigarette smuggling is actually getting into your convoys.
There were photos on the Internet of smuggled cigarettes in in UN convoys.
I'm wondering if if that's a problem for you and are you concerned that some of the funding from the partners that still have a hold could permanently move to other UN agencies and actually undermine the future of the agency?
What can you do or what are you doing to stop that diversion of funding to other UN or other aid agencies?
Just from the cigarette convoys coming in are all brought in through private contractor, private companies.
So these are not Dubrefi convoys or UNWA convoys, but they are convoys transporting goods for UNWA photography, for UNICEF and so on or for the broader aid community.
So they are not proper UN convoys.
So basically we are not present when our truck is offloaded or downloaded.
We are just at the end chain of as a recipient.
So they have been also cigarette in, in in trucks transporting goods for us.
But here I insist they're not UN trucks or belonging to any human chain organisation.
We had a lot of discussion about partnership today, which is very much related to the question you are raising about don't.
I mean the the the main donor today, which is not contributing to the UN to Anwar is the United States.
As we all know this, they have a Congress prohibition until March 2025 S.
The real question is how can the amount allocated for this part of the world, for Palestinian or for Gaza, be be beneficial to anyone in the Gaza Strip?
And in the Gaza Strip, as we know, we have 70% of Palestinian refugees, so are we worried that it will undermine the agency?
I think we have clearly specified the parameters on how partnership will be guided between UN agencies and basically as long we talk about complementing the effort of UNAWA and supporting Palestinian refugees without, you know, without taking over a set of activities, I do believe we are fine with this.
The most important here is not to undermine the spirit of a resolution 3O2 and to make sure that through this we are not undermining the future right of the Palestinian refugees.
So this has been a very sensitive debate.
Even two years ago, you might recall, I brought it on the table.
The first reaction of the communities was no, we don't want this because it might undermine the future role of the agency and hence impact the future right of the Palestinian refugees.
But this kind of feeling is especially strong when there is no political horizon or political future ahead of you, especially when people feel that nothing is remaining.
So we we have all quite a lot and we have distributed this partnership concept now with our donors and I think agencies are fully on board with this.
Mohammed Aslan, Anadul Wan to the Turkish News Agency, thank you so much.
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Yes, I have no doubt that there is a much better confidence today.
If I compare the situation between today and three months ago on the 26th of January, within 48 hours we had up to 16 countries with temporarily indicated that they need to pause primarily because of domestic reason, public opinion perception and it was a precautionary measure.
So we have worked quite a lot with these countries.
We have also been fully committed with Katherine Kononako report.
They were, they were intermediary recommendation shared a month after they started.
And we have been clear from day one that we will embrace any of the recommendation coming out from this report.
And I do believe that this has helped to rebuild the trust with with the donors and they are back.
We have also broaden our donor base basically in, in the Arab world, but also in, in Southeast Asia where we have more donors.
But this still does not compensate one the, the, the, the, the void left behind by the United States.
And #2 even if we would have had the United States, we would still not have filled our budget for 2024.
So here we would have gone back to the traditional chronic situation in which the agency was in before October 7th.
And this again, it's an issue which needs to be address.
We need to be predictable and have a sustainable, more sustainable, I would say a commitment from donors.
Can I take a couple more?
More A couple more questions.
Up on the issue of the the children.
Who are losing limbs if you had sorry.
Because in the meantime we got the end the information about the sources units of figure.
And if you had any idea, sort of.
I understand the average figure per day if you have.
Like an estimate overall of amputations.
And I also had a question.
You talked about the attacks.
There was a case that was brought against in our in New York by families of of hostages and other victims on.
Could you say a little bit more about the the attacks you're facing in house a lawsuits like that can will affect you?
I think on the first question you, you understand what you answered now or can you?
I was wondering if you had a more, a better sort of more of an idea of the, the overall toll on children when it comes to to amputations if you no, unfortunately not basically the fingers for the amputated children having lost a leg or two legs.
And we also know most of the time how the amputation has taken place in quite horrible condition and sometimes without any type of anaesthesia.
And this was also applied to the children.
But we don't have a total overview because UNICEF and the ratio have been cautious enough to say that this does not even include the arms and the hand.
And we have many more about this.
So we, we, we, we, we don't have the total figures on, on this one.
Basically listen on, on, on the attack.
I, I had the occasion to express myself more than once.
Basically we have all type of attack.
It starts with social media smearing.
When I travel to Europe or to parliaments, you have the tractor sending letter to own the lawmakers about Anwar.
Most of the time when we have an event now it's the advisory Commission or donor event.
There is always something coming out.
The lawsuit came out yesterday.
I believe we have been also, as you know, politically announced as an objective.
The agency needs to be dismantled in Anwar.
We have legislative effort in Tel Aviv at the Knesset, with some lawmakers trying to level the organisation as a terrorist organisation or to get rid of the organisation on on any territory on the control of Israel.
We have also a lot of intimidation going on with a regular demonstration in in Jerusalem, which have turned also violent.
We have an atmosphere, I would say for our staff of of fear and anxiety which has been put in place.
Now on your question about about the lawsuit, I learned it through the media.
I have not received any notification.
I don't know what the status of this lawsuit is all about.
But for the time being, I see this as an additional way to put pressure on the agency.
I know you've been very patient Rianovosti Yuria Prelev and maybe then we'll take all we close here or maybe one last I have seen AP and well with one.
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There should be independent investigation on the attacks against the UN premises and then also UN aid workers, including Ulwa employees.
Which UN entities would be appropriate to create such a mandate to, to set up the independent investigation?
You know, it could be UN Security Council, Human Rights Council.
So if you could just name it.
Yes, I, I addressed the Security Council about six weeks ago on this specifically.
And basically I called on the member of the Security Council to put in place such an investigative capacity.
Now, would it be the secretary concern?
Would it be the human right Council?
Would it be the General Assembly?
I don't know what the best mechanism is all about, but what I know is that we cannot do nothing with such blatant disregard of, I mean of a, of a, of a, of a staff premises protected by international law.
If we do so again, we will set a new norm for future conflict.
Last question, Jamie Keaton, Associated Press.
Thank you for coming back to see us.
If you could just specify the two countries that have come back.
Of the four that you mentioned, there's two that are remaining.
So who are the 2 ones that came back?
And you also mentioned the broadening of the funding from Southeast Asia and, and, and I believe you said some Middle Eastern countries.
Is that from governments or is that from individual donors?
And then as a final thing, I'd just like to ask, you mentioned also in your statements that with the Kelowna report that you're prepared you will apply the Kelowna report recommendations throughout whatever they are.
I understand from some NGOs that some of there's already been some backsliding.
The question is really are you now applying all of those Kelowna report recommendations throughout UNRWA including say in for example, in Lebanon and other and other Palestinian areas?
Do do you have something specific in mind in Lebanon there?
I mean, there's been there's been some new allegations that you maybe you're aware of, maybe you can tell us about?
Tried few times, officially the last two country who came back where Austria and Romania.
I think we were talking about Switzerland, but Switzerland officially did not suspend.
It was more a decision process which has taken in a little bit longer.
We, we had, you know, in the, in the Arab world, new countries where Iraq, we had Algeria, we had not completely new, but not traditional Oman who came.
We had an exceptional contribution also of Jordan.
Jordan being a host country, a host country, you know paying already their share.
But we had a contribution from Jordan.
We had private sector in Singapore, for example, individual giving.
We had the recently a contribution from Sri Lanka.
We had a contribution from a few Central Asian state.
I can tell you after I don't want to mistake right now.
So yes, there have been a broadening and in addition of that as you know we had a very successful private fundraising campaign.
Since October, $725 million have been raised through private channel, which is exceptional for the agency.
You know, when it comes to the recommendation of the culinary report, recently we had adopted a new policy when it comes to political affiliation.
We have adopted a new policy when it comes to partnership.
This where recommendation coming from the report.
We have told the member of the Advisory Commission that some recommendation will be implemented as from now on, others will require some resource.
We have received resources from few countries.
So we are recruiting staff to reinforce the internal oversight bodies, our investigative capacity, the human resource department and so on.
And then we will have recommendation which will take longer and we will require the political support of both the donor but also of the host country.
Now, the case you are referring right now in Lebanon is a specific case.
The information given by NGOs has been completely wrong and misleading.
I went to Beirut on a specific case.
You might know that our officers were blocked for more than two months and I had long discussion with all the political faction and basically I have told them that it's I cannot as a head of an agency accept that you prevent us to have access to our headquarter and premises.
And if you continue to do so because you want to put us on the pressure, I'm ready to hand over the keys to the faction.
So at the same time, I had also conversation with the government asking if the government would be ready to ensure that we have full access to our premises.
The person we are talking about is still suspended, remains suspended and is on administrative leave without pay and nothing has changed until the end of the investigation.
So it's quite deliberately dishonest to try to make believe that my visit was to give in and to reinstate an individual within under investigation and being fully suspended if that is the case you are referring to.
Thank you very much, Philip.
I think you've been extremely exhausted.
We let you rest before the start of the Advisory Commission works again this afternoon.
Thanks for being so generous with the Geneva press corps.
Follow the press conference here and online.
And good luck with the end of the works.
And we'll wait for you next time you come to Geneva.
