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STORY: UN / GAZA UNRWA
TRT: 05:57
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 29 OCTOBER 2024, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, UN Headquarters
29 OCTOBER, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Security Council,
3. Wide shot, Special Coordinator Tor Wennesland at the dais
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Tor Wennesland, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, United Nations:
“We are witnessing not only a horrific humanitarian nightmare, but a rapidly accelerating and unravelling of the prospects for a sustainable resolution to this conflict.”
5. Med shot, Palestine Ambassador Riyad Mansour
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Tor Wennesland, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, United Nations:
“Every effort by all of us must be made to de-escalate the situation and establish a different trajectory towards greater peace and stability in the region. We need a cease fire. We need the hostages released from Gaza now. I urge all parties to engage constructively in urgent diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the situation and avoid an endless spiral of death and destruction.”
7. Med shot, Wennesland speaking
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Tor Wennesland, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, United Nations:
“The rights of Palestinian refugees were set out in a General Assembly resolution that pre-dates the creation of UNRWA. Unilateral steps such as legislation which seeks to not only undermine UN mandate work but threaten to further set back a political resolution to the conflict on the basis of UN resolutions and international law must be avoided.”
9. Wide shot, Council
10. Med shot, Wennesland
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer to the United Nations, State of Palestine:
“The entire population of north Gaza is at risk of dying. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are at risk of imminent death. Faced with the death penalty for refusing to leave their land.”
12. Med shot, Mansour speaking
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer to the United Nations, State of Palestine:
“Israel wants to rewrite international law to consider that indiscriminate killing, targeting of civilians, including humanitarians and doctors and journalists, starvation as a method of war, arbitrary detention, abductions and torture, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body and health, wanton destruction, forcible displacement and colonisation are all legal as long as they are committed by Israel. They are barbaric only if committed by other.”
14. Various shots, Council
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer to the United Nations, State of Palestine:
“It is no coincidence that Israel has made outrageous accusations and led unprecedented attacks against the UN, the courts, the humanitarian and media organisation in an attempt to intimidate and silence them.”
16. Wide shot, Council
17. SOUNDBITE (English) Danny Danon, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Israel:
“It is not legitimate, nor it is moral to ignore the indisputable fact that UNRWA Gaza has become a front for Hamas. Yet, that is exactly what the Secretary-General is doing. I have often spoken in this chamber about the necessity of moral clarity. Yet the reactions from this institution and its leader to the elimination of a terrorist make it clear that clarity is lost.”
18. Med shot, Danon speaking
19. SOUNDBITE (English) Danny Danon, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Israel:
“This Council, the international community and the entire UN must accept the reality that UNRWA Gaza is beyond redemption, beyond saving, beyond reform. We must turn a new page now.”
20. Med shot, Wennesland and Danon
21. SOUNDBITE (English) Danny Danon, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Israel:
“We have also proven time and time again the exploitation of UNIFIL positions by Hizbullah. We have presented mountains of evidence of Hizbullah tunnels, bases, weapons, and observation post placed within metres of UNIFIL bases. This situation cannot continue. UNIFIL neglected its reporting obligations on these flagrant violations for the past two decades. There must be change, and that change can only begin when we support Hizbullah from southern Lebanon, protecting Israeli and Lebanese civilians, along with the peacekeepers themselves.”
22. Wide shot, United States Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield at the dais
23 SOUNDBITE (English) Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, United States:
“The United States has made clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu that one year into this conflict, Israel must address the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza, that the United States rejects any Israeli efforts to starve Palestinians in Jabaliya or anywhere else, and that Israel's words must be matched by action on the ground. Right now, that is not happening. This must change immediately.”
24. Wide shot, Council
25. Wide shot, Danon at stakeout podium
26. SOUNDBITE (English) Danny Danon, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Israel:
“We will continue to work with the UN. We will continue to work with UN organs well focussed on humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian, but not in terrorism. We are proving that that's pure terrorism. You have your own UNICEF, World Food Program, dozens of NGOs that operate today in Gaza. We will continue to work with them. But we will not continue to work with UNWRA after what we just exposed.”
27. Pan right, Danon walks away
The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland today (29 Oct) told the Security Council that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is mandated by the General Assembly, and stressed that “unilateral steps such as legislation which seeks to not only undermine UN mandate work but threaten to further set back a political resolution to the conflict on the basis of UN resolutions and international law must be avoided.”
Briefing the Council after visiting the Gaza Strip last week, Wennesland said, “we are witnessing not only a horrific humanitarian nightmare, but a rapidly accelerating and unravelling of the prospects for a sustainable resolution to this conflict.”
He said, “every effort by all of us must be made to de-escalate the situation and establish a different trajectory towards greater peace and stability in the region.”
Wennesland reiterated his call for a cease fire and said, “we need the hostages released from Gaza now.”
He urged all parties “to engage constructively in urgent diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the situation and avoid an endless spiral of death and destruction.”
Wennesland unequivocally condemned the widespread killing and injury of civilians in Gaza, the endless displacement of the population in Gaza and shocking mistreatment of detainees. And he also condemned the continued holding of hostages and the firing of rockets toward Israeli population centres, which has continued this month.
Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the Council that “the entire population of north Gaza is at risk of dying.” He said, “hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are at risk of imminent death. Faced with the death penalty for refusing to leave their land.”
Mansour said, “Israel wants to rewrite international law to consider that indiscriminate killing, targeting of civilians, including humanitarians and doctors and journalists, starvation as a method of war, arbitrary detention, abductions and torture, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body and health, wanton destruction, forcible displacement and colonisation are all legal as long as they are committed by Israel.”
He said it was “no coincidence that Israel has made outrageous accusations and led unprecedented attacks against the UN, the courts, the humanitarian and media organisation in an attempt to intimidate and silence them.”
Israeli forces struck a building in Beit Lahiya, in north of Gaza today, leaving at least 90 Palestinians missing or killed, including at least 25 children, according to local authorities in their preliminary assessment.
Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon told the Council that it was “not legitimate” nor “moral to ignore the indisputable fact that UNRWA Gaza has become a front for Hamas. Yet, that is exactly what the Secretary-General is doing.”
Danon said, “this Council, the international community and the entire UN must accept the reality that UNRWA Gaza is beyond redemption, beyond saving, beyond reform. We must turn a new page now.”
Turning to Lebanon, he said, “we have also proven time and time again the exploitation of UNIFIL positions by Hizbullah. We have presented mountains of evidence of Hizbullah tunnels, bases, weapons, and observation post placed within metres of UNIFIL bases. This situation cannot continue. UNIFIL neglected its reporting obligations on these flagrant violations for the past two decades. There must be change, and that change can only begin when we support Hizbullah from southern Lebanon, protecting Israeli and Lebanese civilians, along with the peacekeepers themselves.”
United States Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, “the United States has made clear to Prime Minister Netanyahu that one year into this conflict, Israel must address the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza, that the United States rejects any Israeli efforts to starve Palestinians in Jabaliya or anywhere else, and that Israel's words must be matched by action on the ground. Right now, that is not happening. This must change immediately.”
Speaking to reporters outside the Council, Danon said, “we will continue to work with the UN. We will continue to work with UN organs well focussed on humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian, but not in terrorism. We are proving that that's pure terrorism. You have your own UNICEF, World Food Program, dozens of NGOs that operate today in Gaza. We will continue to work with them. But we will not continue to work with UNWRA after what we just exposed.”
Secretary-General António Guterres expressed his deep concern at the adoption by the Israeli Knesset of two laws concerning UNRWA, and the laws which, if implemented, would likely prevent UNRWA from continuing its essential work in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, as mandated by the General Assembly of these United Nations.
The Secretary-General emphasized that UNRWA is the principal means by which essential assistance is supplied to Palestine refugees in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. There is no alternative to UNRWA.
Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner General of UNRWA, added that these bills will only deepen the suffering of Palestinians, especially in Gaza, where people have been going through more than a year of sheer hell. He said that these bills increase the suffering of the Palestinians and are nothing less than collective punishment.
In Lebanon, today, a rocket hit the UN peacekeeping headquarters in Naqoura, setting a vehicle workshop on fire. Peacekeepers were not in the bunkers at the time. Initial reports suggest that three peacekeepers from Austria suffered minor injuries; fortunately, no one was seriously injured. The rocket was fired from north of the Mission’s headquarters and now UNIFIL has opened an investigation into the incident.
