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STORY: UN / GAZA PALESTINE
TRT: 05:19
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 29 MAY 2024, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations Headquarters
2. Various shots, Security Council
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Tor Wennesland, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personal
Representative of the Secretary-General:
“As Israel rolls out significant ground operations in and around Rafah, the devastation is only intensifying. The appalling incidents last Sunday, when the reported 45 Palestinians were killed and 200 injured as the tents they were sheltering in burned around them, does not stand alone admits shocking numbers of civilian casualties.”
4. Med shot, Wennesland addressing Council
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Tor Wennesland, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personal
Representative of the Secretary-General:
“Palestinians in Gaza face another round of mass displacement with one million fleeing from Rafah, many being displaced multiple times. Overcrowded conditions and acute shortage of food, water and medicine have led to misery and spread of diseases. The humanitarian response is hopelessly inadequate to address these needs.”
6. Med shot, Wennesland addressing Council
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Tor Wennesland, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personal
Representative of the Secretary-General:
“It is right that we are all focused on preventing a further deterioration or looking for solution to the most pressing needs. Yet, without linking these urgent efforts to a longer term political strategy, any solution will be short lived, or even counterproductive. No attempts to address the humanitarian security challenges will be sustainable unless it's a part of a broader approach that addresses Gaza’s political future.”
8. Med shot, Israeli Ambassador
9. Wide shot, United States Ambassador Robert Wood addressing Council
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Robert A. Wood, Alternate Representative for Special Political Affairs in the United Nations, United States:
“It is wrong to withhold funds that provide basic goods and services to innocent people. The United States has been clear; withholding funds destabilizes the West Bank and undermines the Palestinian people search for security and prosperity, which is in Israel's interest. We are also troubled by Israel's threat to cut off Palestinian banks from their Israeli correspondent banks.”
10. Wide shot, Council
11. Wide shot, Palestinian Ambassador Majed Bamya addressing Council
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Majed Bamya, Deputy Permanent Observer to the United Nations, State of Palestine:
“The whole world sees the targeting of civilians and indiscriminate attacks against them; the use of starvation as a method of war; the summary executions in the streets, including of people blindfolded and handcuffed. They saw hospitals turned into graveyards, the mass graves. But somehow one should trust Israel when it says it is investigating the conduct of the self-proclaimed ‘most moral army in the world,’ an army committing war crimes on a daily basis. Anyone interested in the truth or in accountability should not be interested in Israel's sham investigations.”
13. Wide shot, Council
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Brett Jonathan Miller, Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Israel:
“This Council chooses to convene almost weekly - even bi-weekly at this point - to hold Israel accountable for a war we did not choose or want. Such behaviour is perhaps not surprising for an organization that eulogizes mass murderers. That the General Assembly will convene tomorrow to lament the death of a dictator that butchered his own citizens speaks volumes. Colleagues. If Hamas refuses to release our hostages and surrender, it may have only one option; to bring the hostages home ourselves and eliminate Hamas’ terrorist capabilities. And this is what we have to continue to do.”
15. Wide shot, South African Ambassador Mathu Joyini addressing Council
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Mathu Joyini, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, South Africa:
“Contrary to what we've just heard from the representative of Israel, in its decisions the Court has asserted that the Palestinians have a legal right to protection against genocide, and that South Africa has shown that there was a real imminent risk to the irreparable violation of that right. The ICJ’s orders make it clear that there is a serious risk of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Third states must therefore also act independently and immediately to prevent genocide by Israel and to ensure that they are not themselves in violation of the Genocide Convention.”
17. Wide shot, Council
18. Wide shot, Wennesland walks up to stakeout podium
19. SOUNDBITE (English) Tor Wennesland, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personal
Representative of the Secretary-General:
“If you're going to turn the ship, the Council needs to agree on some major principles, although some I outlined myself in today's meeting and before. We need to start somewhere. I'm also fully aware of the opposition by the Israeli Prime Minister and other in this government on that principle. Well, I mean, we will have to move on it anyway. And the UN do not see a way around that one, for a lasting peace to take place.”
20. Wide shot, Wennesland walks away
The Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, today (29 May) told the Security Council that “no attempts to address the humanitarian security challenges will be sustainable unless it's a part of a broader approach that addresses Gaza’s political future.”
Wennesland told the Council that “as Israel rolls out significant ground operations in and around Rafah, the devastation is only intensifying,” and said, “the appalling incidents last Sunday, when the reported 45 Palestinians were killed and 200 injured as the tents they were sheltering in burned around them, does not stand alone admits shocking numbers of civilian casualties.”
The Special Coordinator noted that Palestinians in Gaza “face another round of mass displacement with one million fleeing from Rafah, many being displaced multiple times. Overcrowded conditions and acute shortage of food, water and medicine have led to misery and spread of diseases.”
The humanitarian response, he said, “is hopelessly inadequate to address these needs.”
Wennesland stressed that “it is right that we are all focused on preventing a further deterioration or looking for solution to the most pressing needs. Yet, without linking these urgent efforts to a longer term political strategy, any solution will be short lived, or even counterproductive.”
United States Ambassador Robert A. Wood told the Council that it was “wrong” for Israel to suspend the transfer of Palestinian tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority, “funds that provide basic goods and services to innocent people.”
The United States, Woods said, “has been clear; withholding funds destabilizes the West Bank and undermines the Palestinian people search for security and prosperity, which is in Israel's interest.”
He also expressed concern at “Israel's threat to cut off Palestinian banks from their Israeli correspondent banks.”
Palestinian Ambassador Majed Bamya told the Council that “the whole world sees the targeting of civilians and indiscriminate attacks against them; the use of starvation as a method of war; the summary executions in the streets, including of people blindfolded and handcuffed. They saw hospitals turned into graveyards, the mass graves.”
Bamya said, “somehow one should trust Israel when it says it is investigating the conduct of the self-proclaimed ‘most moral army in the world,’ an army committing war crimes on a daily basis. Anyone interested in the truth or in accountability should not be interested in Israel's sham investigations.”
For his part Israeli Ambassador Brett Jonathan Miller said, “this Council chooses to convene almost weekly - even bi-weekly at this point - to hold Israel accountable for a war we did not choose or want. Such behaviour is perhaps not surprising for an organization that eulogizes mass murderers. That the General Assembly will convene tomorrow to lament the death of a dictator that butchered his own citizens speaks volumes.”
Miller said, “if Hamas refuses to release our hostages and surrender, it may have only one option; to bring the hostages home ourselves and eliminate Hamas’ terrorist capabilities. And this is what we have to continue to do.”
South African Ambassador Mathu Joyini told the Council that in its decisions the International Court of Justice (ICJ) “has asserted that the Palestinians have a legal right to protection against genocide, and that South Africa has shown that there was a real imminent risk to the irreparable violation of that right.”
The ICJ’s orders, Joyini said, “make it clear that there is a serious risk of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza” and “third states must therefore also act independently and immediately to prevent genocide by Israel and to ensure that they are not themselves in violation of the Genocide Convention.”
The ICJ issued a ruling last week stating that Israel should “immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life.”
Outside the Council, Wennesland spoke to reporters and said, “if you're going to turn the ship, the Council needs to agree on some major principles, although some I outlined myself in today's meeting and before. We need to start somewhere. I'm also fully aware of the opposition by the Israeli Prime Minister and other in this government on that principle. Well, I mean, we will have to move on it anyway. And the UN do not see a way around that one, for a lasting peace to take place.”
According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as widespread Israeli bombardment continues to be reported, ground incursions and heavy fighting are also affecting northern, central and southern Gaza. OCHA says the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza has dropped by 67 per cent since 7 May. This is due to the closure of the Rafah crossing, the inability to safely and consistently pick up commodities that have been dropped off on the Palestinian side of the Kerem Abu Salem crossing, and limited deliveries through other entry points.
The World Health Organization says that just one hospital in Rafah – that’s the Al Emirati Maternity Hospital - remains partially functional.
