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STORY: UN / GAZA UNRWA WFP
TRT: 04:40
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 16 NOVEMBER 2023, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, United Nations Headquarters
16 NOVEMBER 2023, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, speakers, press room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Abeer Etefa, Senior Spokeswoman for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe, World Food Program (WFP):
“Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are becoming more desperate every day in the search for bread and other essential foods. We've already started starting to see cases of dehydration and malnutrition, which is increasing rapidly and by the day. So, Gaza actually risks sliding into hunger without fuel and rapid surge in food supplies.”
4. Wide shot, speakers
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Abeer Etefa, Senior Spokeswoman for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe, World Food Program (WFP):
“With only 10 percent of necessary food supply entering Gaza since the beginning of this conflict, we're now facing a massive food gap. So, 2.2 million people, that is nearly the entire population of Gaza, are now in need of food assistance.”
6. Wide shot, speakers
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Abeer Etefa, Senior Spokeswoman for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe, World Food Program (WFP):
“The food that has entered Gaza so far is only enough to meet 7 percent of the people's daily minimum of the caloric needs.”
8. Wide shot, speakers
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Abeer Etefa, Senior Spokeswoman for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe, World Food Program (WFP):
“There is no way to meet the current hungry needs with the current situation that we have to have, you know, a different space that allows us to have the safe access and to have the flowing of goods inside Gaza. The collapse of a food supply chain is catastrophic. It's a catastrophic turning point in an already very dire situation. Gaza was not an easy place to live in before the 7th of October. If and if the situation was difficult before this conflict, it's now disastrous.”
10. Wide shot, journalists
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Juliette Touma, Director of Communications, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA):
“There will not be a cross-border aid operation at the Rafah crossing tomorrow morning. The communications network in Gaza is down because there is no fuel, and this makes it impossible to manage or coordinate humanitarian aid convoys.”
13. Wide shot, journalists
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Juliette Touma, Director of Communications, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA):
“Today, Gaza look looks like it's been hit by an earthquake, except it's manmade. And it could have been totally avoided. We have just witnessed, in the past week, the largest displacement of Palestinians since 1948.”
15. Close up, journalist
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Juliette Touma, Director of Communications, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA):
“Unlike in other global conflicts in recent years, the people of Gaza are trapped in an enclave with no way out. The Enclave has now shrunk by half. Many continue to flock to UNRWA shelters where we are hosting more than 800,000 people.”
17. Close up, journalist
18. SOUNDBITE (English) Juliette Touma, Director of Communications, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA):
“There's no place that is safe in the Gaza Strip, let alone a safe zone anywhere in Gaza. At least 103 UNRWA colleagues were killed. This is the number that we were able to confirm. The actual number is likely to be much higher.”
19. Close up, journalist
20. SOUNDBITE (English) Juliette Touma, Director of Communications, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA):
“UNRWA is not able to uphold the commitments to provide for the Palestinian people any longer. We see this as a deliberate attempt to strangle our operations and paralyze UNRWA. For weeks on end, we have pleaded for urgent deliveries of fuel. Yesterday, we finally got a shipment of fuel that was conditional to be used only for the transport of aid trucks. Only for the transport of aid trucks coming from Egypt. We could not use that fuel for any other humanitarian purposes.”
21. Wide shot, speakers
22. SOUNDBITE (English) Juliette Touma, Director of Communications, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA):
“It is simply outrageous, but humanitarian agencies are reduced to begging for fuel.”
23. Close up, journalist
24. SOUNDBITE (English) Juliette Touma, Director of Communications, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA):
“We need a ceasefire - now, now - if we want to save whatever is left of our humanity.”
25. Wide shot, speakers
A World Food Program spokesperson said that nearly the entire population of Gaza now needs food assistance.
Abeer Etefa, World Food Program (WFP) Senior Spokeswoman for the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, and Juliette Touma, Director of Communications, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), briefed reporters virtually today (16 Nov) on the situation in the region.
Talking from Cairo, Egypt, Etefa said, “Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are becoming more desperate every day in the search for bread and other essential foods. We've already started starting to see cases of dehydration and malnutrition, which is increasing rapidly and by the day. So, Gaza actually risks sliding into hunger without fuel and rapid surge in food supplies.”
She also said, “With only 10 percent of necessary food supply entering Gaza since the beginning of this conflict, we're now facing a massive food gap. So, 2.2 million people, that is nearly the entire population of Gaza, are now in need of food assistance.”
She noted, “The food that has entered Gaza so far is only enough to meet 7 percent of the people's daily minimum of the caloric needs.”
The WFP Spokeswoman stated, “There is no way to meet the current hungry needs with the current situation that we have to have, you know, a different space that allows us to have the safe access and to have the flowing of goods inside Gaza. The collapse of a food supply chain is catastrophic. It's a catastrophic turning point in an already very dire situation. Gaza was not an easy place to live in before the 7th of October. If and if the situation was difficult before this conflict, it's now disastrous.”
Addressing journalists from Amman, Jordan, Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s Director of Communications, announced, “There will not be a cross-border aid operation at the Rafah crossing tomorrow morning. The communications network in Gaza is down because there is no fuel, and this makes it impossible to manage or coordinate humanitarian aid convoys.”
She said, “Today, Gaza look looks like it's been hit by an earthquake, except it's manmade. And it could have been totally avoided. We have just witnessed, in the past week, the largest displacement of Palestinians since 1948.”
She stated, “Unlike in other global conflicts in recent years, the people of Gaza are trapped in an enclave with no way out. The Enclave has now shrunk by half. Many continue to flock to UNRWA shelters where we are hosting more than 800,000 people.”
Touma continued, “There's no place that is safe in the Gaza Strip, let alone a safe zone anywhere in Gaza. At least 103 UNRWA colleagues were killed. This is the number that we were able to confirm. The actual number is likely to be much higher.”
On fuel, she commented, “UNRWA is not able to uphold the commitments to provide for the Palestinian people any longer. We see this as a deliberate attempt to strangle our operations and paralyze UNRWA. For weeks on end, we have pleaded for urgent deliveries of fuel. Yesterday, we finally got a shipment of fuel that was conditional to be used only for the transport of aid trucks. Only for the transport of aid trucks coming from Egypt. We could not use that fuel for any other humanitarian purposes.”
She continued, “It is simply outrageous, but humanitarian agencies are reduced to begging for fuel.”
She concluded, “We need a ceasefire - now, now - if we want to save whatever is left of our humanity.”
