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STORY: UN / GAZA AND WEST BANK
TRT: 03:09
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 11 DECEMBER 2024, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, United Nations headquarters
11 DECEMBER 2024, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Haoliang Xu, Assosiated Administrator, UNDP:
“Almost one year on, you can imagine the amount of damage, and the different estimates say that there's a 40 to 50 million tons of debris that the war has caused.”
4. Wide shot, press briefing room
5. SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Haoliang Xu, Assosiated Administrator, UNDP:
“Estimates say that 1.8 million people are in phase 3 of the IPC, food security rank. And what I know is that at least for the last month, no fresh fruit and vegetables have been imported.”
6. Wide shot, press briefing room
7. SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Haoliang Xu, Assosiated Administrator, UNDP:
“Early on, one activity we tried - to use solar powered and water desalination stations to provide the drinking water to people who have lost their homes and are in camps. So, we have seven units operating for each unit is producing about, let's say 20 to 25 cubic meters of water every day. And for humanitarian response standards, you need six liters of drinking water per person per day.”
8. Wide shot, press briefing room
9. SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Haoliang Xu, Assosiated Administrator, UNDP:
Now, obviously, to make this happen, we needed to coordinate with Israeli authorities very closely for importation of this equipment.
10. Med shot, journalist
11. SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Haoliang Xu, Assosiated Administrator, UNDP:
“Extensive destruction of houses is putting 2.1 million people right on the move multiple times, and there are different statistics. So essentially, it’s close to 2 million people are living in either, you know, makeshift tents or in partially damaged houses.
12. Wide shot, press briefing room
13. SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Haoliang Xu, Assosiated Administrator, UNDP:
“Hundreds of tons of daily solid waste next to the camps. I visited the many of such dump sites, and the smell in these dump sites is really intolerable.”
14. Wide shot, press briefing room
15. SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Haoliang Xu, Assosiated Administrator, UNDP:
“So this is not a traditional humanitarian assistance, you can say, but this really is critical for the overall humanitarian situation in Gaza.”
16. Med shot, journalist
17. SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Haoliang Xu, Assosiated Administrator, UNDP:
“So my impression I've not discussed this directly with them [Israeli authorities], is that, because I was not involved in many of these issues, right, is that if they consider certain type of goods that are not immediately needed for humanitarian assistance, they may reject it.”
18. Wide shot, end of press briefing
Speaking at a press briefing in New York, Haoliang Xu, the Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), highlighted the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and the West Bank nearly one year after the escalation of conflict in the region, saying there are “40 to 50 million tons of debris that the war has caused.”
The ongoing crisis has pushed 1.8 million people into Phase 3 of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), signifying severe food insecurity. “And what I know is that at least for the last month, no fresh fruit and vegetables have been imported,” Xu noted.
Efforts to provide clean drinking water have faced immense logistical challenges. “Early on, one activity we tried - to use solar powered and water desalination stations to provide the drinking water to people who have lost their homes and are in camps. So, we have seven units operating for each unit is producing about, let's say 20 to 25 cubic meters of water every day. And for humanitarian response standards, you need six liters of drinking water per person per day,” Xu explained.
The destruction of housing has also displaced millions. “2.1 million people right on the move multiple times, and there are different statistics. So essentially, it’s close to two million people are living in (…) makeshift tents or in partially damaged houses,” Xu said.
The mounting solid waste in and around camps poses further challenges. “I visited the many of such dump sites, and the smell in these dump sites is really intolerable,” he said.
Xu emphasized that addressing the situation requires unprecedented coordination. “Now, obviously, to make this happen, we needed to coordinate with Israeli authorities very closely for importation of this equipment,” he said, acknowledging the complexities of working with the Israeli government.
“So my impression I've not discussed this directly with them [Israeli authorities], is that, because I was not involved in many of these issues, right, is that if they consider certain type of goods that are not immediately needed for humanitarian assistance, they may reject it,” Xu added.
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