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GENEVA / GAZA OPT ISRAEL UPDATE
STORY: GENEVA / GAZA OPT ISRAEL UPDATE
TRT: 03:02
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 03 NOVEMBER 2023, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / FILE
FILE - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, exteriors, UN building with UN flag
03 NOVEMBER 2023, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
2. Med shot, press room with speakers at podium
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Jens Laerke, Spokesperson, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“The solution is a humanitarian pause. That's what we are suggesting. It's not something new. It's something that has been done in many other contexts. We, as OCHA, have deconfliction mechanisms in places either have now or have had in the past: Northwest, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and many other places.”
4. Wide shot, press room with journalists and speakers at the podium
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Jens Laerke, Spokesperson, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“We can report that in Gaza, the Palestinian death toll over the past 17 days has reached 9061. Women and children comprise some 62 per cent of these victims.”
6. Wide shot, press room with camerawoman, UN Geneva.
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Jens Laerke, Spokesperson, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“At least 195 Palestinians were killed and about 800 injured in less than 24 hours between Tuesday, 31st of October and Wednesday 1st of November in two rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Jabaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza. And that is according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Some 120 people were believed to be trapped under the rubble.”
8. Wide shot, press briefing room with journalists and screens
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Christian Lindmeier, spokesperson for the UN World Health Organization (WHO):
“It's the women and the children, the innocent civilians that are losing here and that's why we need to get this humanitarian access. We need to get it now, and ideally, as Jens and others pointed out, the cessation of hostilities, but at least the humanitarian pause to bring in the supplies, to bring shelter, to evacuate the most, the most desperately wounded and so on and so forth. Let’s think about the victims.”
10. Wide shot, press room with speakers at the podium
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Liz Throssell, spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR):
“Israeli forces have increasingly used military tactics and weapons in law enforcement operations, including an operation overnight involving air strikes on Jenin refugee camp. Law enforcement is governed by international human rights law, which prohibits the intentional use of lethal force except when strictly necessary to protect life.”
12. Close up, journalist listening
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Liz Throssell, Spokesperson, UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR):
“Settler violence, which was already at record levels, has also escalated dramatically, averaging seven attacks a day. In more than a third of these attacks, firearms were used. We have documented that, in many of these incidents, settlers were accompanied by members of the Israeli forces while the settlers were wearing uniforms and carrying army rifles. Along with the near total impunity for settler violence, we are concerned that armed settlers have been acting with the acquiescence and collaboration of Israeli forces and authorities.”
14. Wide shot, speakers at podium and journalists in press room
15. Med shot, journalists in press room
16. Close up, journalist listening
As the crisis in the Palestinian enclave continues to worsen amid intense Israeli bombardments and an ongoing ground operation, UN humanitarians reiterated on Friday their call for a humanitarian pause to be able to deliver urgently needed relief items and to allow for severely wounded people to get out of the Gaza Strip.
“The solution is a humanitarian pause, that's what we are suggesting. It's something that has been done in many other contexts,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) when briefing reporters at the United Nations in Geneva. “As OCHA, we have deconfliction mechanisms in place, we either have now or have had in the past: Northwest, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and many other places.”
OCHA reported on Friday that in Gaza, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, the Palestinian death toll over the past 27 days has reached 9,061. Women and children comprise some 62 percent of these victims. Nearly 1,400 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed so far in Israel.
“At least 195 Palestinians were killed and about 800 injured in less than 24 hours between Tuesday, 31st of October and Wednesday 1st of November in two rounds of Israeli airstrikes on Jabaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza,” said OCHA’s Jens Laerke. Some 120 people were believed to be trapped under the rubble.
Nearly 700,000 Internally Displaced People (IDPs) are sheltering in 149 installations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) across the Gaza Strip, reaching almost four times their intended capacity, reported OCHA. This means that in some shelters up to 240 people are living in classrooms of 40 to 60 square metres.
Since the start of the hostilities, nearly 50 UNRWA facilities have been damaged by the fighting. Providing humanitarian aid remains extremely challenging due to lack of fuel, ongoing bombardments and disruptions to communication networks.
For Christian Lindmeier, spokesperson for the UN Health Agency (WHO), “it's the women and the children, the innocent civilians that are losing here, and that's why we need to get this humanitarian access.” He pointed out that what is needed is “at least a humanitarian pause to bring in the supplies, to bring shelter, to evacuate the most desperately wounded.”
To ease this suffering, OCHA and its humanitarian partners will release on Monday an updated Flash Appeal at an estimated USD 1.2 billion to cover the cost of the needs of 2.7 million people which is the entire population of Gaza and 500,000 people in the occupied West Bank.
The original appeal, launched 12 October, asked for USD 294 million to support nearly 1.3 million people and is 25 percent funded so far.
While much attention has been on the attacks inside Israel and the escalation of hostilities in Gaza since 7 October, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) on Friday expressed deep concern about the situation in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, “amid the increasing and multi-layered human rights violations of Palestinians occurring there.”
According to OHCHR, since 7 October up to 2 November, 132 Palestinians, including 41 children, have been killed in the West Bank – 124 by Israeli forces and eight by settlers. Two Israeli soldiers have been killed.
“Israeli forces have increasingly used military tactics and weapons in law enforcement operations, including an operation overnight involving air strikes on Jenin refugee camp,” said OHCHR’s spokesperson Liz Throssell. ”Law enforcement is governed by international human rights law, which prohibits the intentional use of lethal force except when strictly necessary to protect life.”
OHCHR informed that since 7 October, nearly 1,000 Palestinians from at least 15 herding communities have been forced from their homes. In these circumstances, settler violence may amount to the forcible transfer of a population - a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
“Settler violence, which was already at record levels, has also escalated dramatically, averaging seven attacks a day,” said Liz Throssell. She added that in more than a third of these attacks, firearms were used. “We have documented that, in many of these incidents, settlers were accompanied by members of the Israeli forces while the settlers were wearing uniforms and carrying army rifles. Along with the near total impunity for settler violence, we are concerned that armed settlers have been acting with the acquiescence and collaboration of Israeli forces and authorities.”
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