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UN / GAZA HUMANITARIAN MCGOLDRICK INTERVIEW
STORY: UN / GAZA HUMANITARIAN MCGOLDRICK INTERVIEW
TRT: 04:57
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT UNICEF FOOTAGE ON SCREEN
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 13 JANUARY 2024, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
1. Med shot, UN flag
13 JANUARY 2024, NEW YORK CITY
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Jamie McGoldrick, Interim Deputy Special Coordinator and Resident Coordinator, Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO):
“The life they once had is gone and probably gone for such a long time. So there's a degree of shock and a degree of despair. And I think there's a hopelessness that's there as well, because they don't see any answers to what it is that they then face ahead. I mean, it's also a sense that it's amazing also that the resilience and the steadfastness of some of these colleagues who have been in that situation, who have come to the south, fleeing as a displaced person, but still determined up to do work.”
FILE – UNICEF – PLEASE CREDIT ON SCREEN – 19 DECEMBER 2023, RAFAH, SOUTHERN GAZA STRIP
3. Various shots, a large crowd, predominantly children, forms a long line, containers in hand, to receive a free meal
13 JANUARY 2024, NEW YORK CITY
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Jamie McGoldrick, Interim Deputy Special Coordinator and Resident Coordinator, Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO):
“146 UN colleagues have been killed, all those have lost parts of the families, yet they still deliver. And then you've got this this whole idea of, you know, it's not as though you're running away to safety, because where you are right now is unsafe, where you are now is getting more and more cramped and crowded.”
FILE – UNICEF – PLEASE CREDIT ON SCREEN – 19 DECEMBER 2023, RAFAH, SOUTHERN GAZA STRIP
5. Various shots, a large crowd, predominantly children, forms a long line, containers in hand, to receive a free meal
13 JANUARY 2024, NEW YORK CITY
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Jamie McGoldrick, Interim Deputy Special Coordinator and Resident Coordinator, Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO):
“So what we've got is a situation where I would say that the key issues for us as better shelter, more food supplies, better water and sanitation, sewage situation and the health needs. And at the same time, there's a lot of protection concerns are, you know, gender-based violence, you know, child protection issues and there is a lot of unaccompanied children. I all of those issues are there. And then also, we need to ourselves, as humanitarians, we have to have the ability to do that work. So that means protection for us as well, which means having good communication systems, having the ability to move around and deconfliction in terms of our humanitarian movements are actually safeguarded. And unfortunately, that hasn't been the case today. There's been a number of incidents. So we are trying to bring in more trucks. Yesterday, we had 200 trucks, was the most we've ever had a crossing into the Rafah. There's nothing coming in from the north. It's all coming in from the south. So we're trying to save the population, but we know there's probably all of the population of 2.2 million need some assistance of some kind.”
FILE – UNICEF – PLEASE CREDIT ON SCREEN – 29 DECEMBER 2023, RAFAH, SOUTH THE GAZA STRIP
7. Various shot, UNICEF staff and partners gathering as a truck loaded with vaccines arrives at the UNICEF warehouse
13 JANUARY 2024, NEW YORK CITY
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Jamie McGoldrick, Interim Deputy Special Coordinator and Resident Coordinator, Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO):
“What we would like to do eventually is that, you know, if the commercial sector sets up again, we can actually start supply. The shops are just closed because there's nothing in them. All the stocks have gone. We have to replenish those stocks. That's one thing. And once we have that up to a certain scale, we can then start to use cash cards, cash voucher systems so we don't have to spend money and time bringing heavy logistics on when a lot of the supply we can use is giving people the ability to go to the shop in the stores to use that card themselves as we do in other contexts. But you can't do that with a long way off that right now we've got a long, long struggle of just keeping the supply of humanity assistance, especially food and medical supplies in there. Because if we don't that, these things, these items are going to become very, shall we say, the rise for the black market, and we'll start to see this exploitation taking place. We’ve already seen that happening. And we need to then flood the market, flood the system so that we devalue this product. So it's no longer be used in the black market. It's not being used by extortionists. We can actually use it for the purpose of serving humanitarian need.”
FILE – UNICEF – PLEASE CREDIT ON SCREEN – 18 DECEMBER 2023, RAFAH, SOUTH THE GAZA STRIP
9. Wide shot, children among waste and sewage, which increases the risk of the spread of diseases among people
13 JANUARY 2024, NEW YORK CITY
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Jamie McGoldrick, Interim Deputy Special Coordinator and Resident Coordinator, Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO):
“We are trying to increase our operations. And our operations have been sort of hampered by the insistence of the government of Israel to use a pedestrian crossing that Rafah to bring truckloads of supplies on. Well, it's working well. It's not we can't rely on all of Gaza and 2.2 million people on one crossing point. We have to open up elsewhere.”
FILE – UNICEF – PLEASE CREDIT ON SCREEN - 14 DECEMBER 2023, DEIR AL-BALA, SOUTH GAZA STRIP
11. Various shots, people and tents
13 JANUARY 2024, NEW YORK CITY
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Jamie McGoldrick, Interim Deputy Special Coordinator and Resident Coordinator, Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO):
“I think the Special Coordinator Office is though, you know is still full on and trying to address all of these crises which are interlinked, which is this of the humanitarian linked with this the governance challenges that are linked to the notice of this reconstruction area as well. So that's something that will have to happen. But I think, at the same time, we have to push harder and strengthen the negotiations on the immediate, unconditional release of hostages by Hamas. That has to happen. We have to scale up assistance going to Gaza. Well, you know, taking into account Israel's own internal security concerns, and we have to increase the humanitarian crossings to flow aid into Gaza, such as Kerem Shalom in addition to Rafah.”
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
13. Med shot, UN flag
Top UN aid official in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Jamie McGoldrick, said “we have to scale up assistance going to Gaza.”
In an interview via teleconference from Jerusalem today (13 Jan), Jamie McGoldrick, Interim Deputy Special Coordinator and Resident Coordinator, Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO), said, “there's a degree of shock and a degree of despair. And I think there's a hopelessness that's there as well, because they don't see any answers to what it is that they then face ahead.”
He added, “it's amazing also that the resilience and the steadfastness of some of these colleagues who have been in that situation, who have come to the south, fleeing as a displaced person, but still determined up to do work.”
The Deputy Special Coordinator continued, “146 UN colleagues have been killed, all those have lost parts of the families, yet they still deliver. And then you've got this this whole idea of, you know, it's not as though you're running away to safety, because where you are right now is unsafe, where you are now is getting more and more cramped and crowded.”
He noted, “the key issues for us as better shelter, more food supplies, better water and sanitation, sewage situation and the health needs, and at the same time, there's a lot of protection concerns are, you know, gender-based violence, you know, child protection issues as there is a lot of unaccompanied children. I think all of those issues are there.”
McGoldrick stressed that humanitarians have to have the ability to do work, “so that means protection for us as well, which means having good communication systems, having the ability to move around and deconfliction and terms of our humanitarian movements are actually safeguarded. And unfortunately, that hasn't been the case today. There's been a number of incidents.”
According to him, “yesterday, we had 200 trucks, was the most we've ever had a crossing into the Rafah. There's nothing coming in from the north. It's all coming in from the south.”
He highlighted, “So we're trying to save the population, but we know there's probably all of the population of 2.2 million need some assistance of some kind.”
The top humanitarian said, “what we would like to do eventually is that the commercial sector sets up again, we can actually start supply.”
He explained, “the shops are just closed because there's nothing in them. All the stocks have gone. We have to replenish those stocks. That's one thing. And once we have that up to a certain scale, we can then start to use cash cards, cash voucher systems, so we don't have to spend money and time bringing heavy logistics on when a lot of the supply we can use is giving people the ability to go to the shop in the stores to use that card themselves as we do in other contexts.”
McGoldrick also noted the rise of the black market, “we need to flood the market, flood the system so that we devalue this product. So it's no longer be used in the black market. It's not being used by extortionists. We can actually use it for the purpose of saving humanitarian need.”
He stressed, “we are trying to increase our operations and our operations have been sort of hampered by the insistence of the government of Israel to use a pedestrian crossing that Rafah to bring truckloads of supplies on a well, it's working well.”
“It's not we can't rely on all of Gaza and 2.2 million people on one crossing point. We have to open up elsewhere,” McGoldrick added.
The Deputy Special Coordinator concluded, “we have to push harder and strengthen the negotiations on the immediate, unconditional release of hostages by Hamas. That has to happen. We have to scale up assistance going to Gaza. Well, you know, taking into account Israel's own internal security concerns, and we have to increase the humanitarian crossings to flow aid into Gaza, such as Kerem Shalom in addition to Rafah.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres announced the appointment of James Eugene McGoldrick as his new Ad Interim Deputy Special Coordinator and Resident Coordinator, Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) on 22 December 2023. McGoldrick also serves as Humanitarian Coordinator ad interim. He succeeds Lynn Hastings.
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