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STORY: UN / GAZA LAZZARINI PRESSER
TRT: 04:02
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 13 NOVEMBER 2024, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior UN Headquarters
13 NOVEMBER 2024, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press room dais
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA):
“We are experiencing the darkest moment for the agency in 75 years. I think you are very familiar with the attack the agency has been under. Attack against the staff, as of today 243 staff have been killed. The attack on the premises, the attack on the operation, but in addition of that, there have been intense and aggressive campaign of disinformation reaching out of a donor capital to delegitimize the agency. And the latest development has been the adoption of the Knesset bill.”
4. Med shot, journalists
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA):
“UNRWA is a casualty of this war. Let's do no mistake. The intention to undermine the agency are politically motivated. They have nothing to do with breaches of neutrality. Breaches of neutrality are being handled seriously by the agency. I acknowledge that we are not operating in the zero-risk environment, but we are operating with a zero-tolerance environment.”
6. Med shot, journalists
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA):
“If you get rid of an agency like ours, what will happen once we have a cease fire? What will bring back the hundreds of thousands of girls and boys currently living into rubble, into a learning environment? Only a functioning state can provide this education. I know that when it comes to primary health, the same questions are being asked.”
8. Med shot, journalists
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA):
“We will be operating until the day we cannot operate anymore. So, our determination is not to give in to our mandate to deliver services, and we will deliver such services until we are forced to stop these services. When will it be? I hope never. Now, what will happen after the 90 days, I do not have a straight answer. I think very few of us know. If we have a no contact policy in a place like Gaza, that means we will not be able to deconflict or coordinate any of our movement. So, it will make our operation extraordinarily challenging.”
10. Med shot, journalists
11 SOUNDBITE (English) Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA):
“The objective is to strip the Palestinian from the refugee statute and also to unilaterally change the parameters for a political solution. It's a way to undermine the future aspiration of the Palestinian for self-determination. It's a way to undermine and to bury one's own the two-state solution.”
11. Med shot, journalists
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA):
“The right of return is a political right which needs to be addressed in a political solution. So UNRWA as an agency has absolutely nothing to do with this question.”
13. Wide shot, end of presser
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini today (13 Nov) said the objective of the campaign to delegitimize the agency “is to strip the Palestinian from the refugee statute,” and “to undermine and to bury once for all the two-state solution.”
Talking to journalists in New York after briefing the General Assembly’s Fourth Committee, Lazzarini said, “we are experiencing the darkest moment for the agency in 75 years,” stressing that UNRWA staff, premises, and operation, have been under “attack.”
He said, “in addition of that, there have been intense and aggressive campaign of disinformation reaching out of a donor capital to delegitimize the agency. And the latest development has been the adoption of the Knesset bill.”
Lazzarini said, “UNRWA is a casualty of this war. Let's do no mistake. The intention to undermine the agency are politically motivated. They have nothing to do with breaches of neutrality.”
He said, “if you get rid of an agency like ours, what will happen once we have a cease fire? What will bring back the hundreds of thousands of girls and boys currently living into rubble, into a learning environment? Only a functioning state can provide this education. I know that when it comes to primary health, the same questions are being asked.”
The Commissioner-General vowed that UNRWA will continue operating “until the day we cannot operate anymore.”
He said, “our determination is not to give in to our mandate to deliver services, and we will deliver such services until we are forced to stop these services. When will it be? I hope never. Now, what will happen after the 90 days, I do not have a straight answer. I think very few of us know. If we have a no contact policy in a place like Gaza, that means we will not be able to deconflict or coordinate any of our movement. So, it will make our operation extraordinarily challenging.”
Asked about the right of return of Palestinian Refugees, Lazzarini said it is “a political right which needs to be addressed in a political solution. So UNRWA as an agency has absolutely nothing to do with this question.”
On 28 October, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, voted in favour of legislation targeting UNRWA, which could effectively bring its operations in the occupied Palestinian territories to a halt.
243 staff have been killed so far in Gaza since the beginning of the war.
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