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STORY: UN / GAZA WFP SKAU
TRT: 4:11
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGAUGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 11 JULY 2025, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior, United Nations Headquarters
11 JULY 2025, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Carl Skau, Deputy Executive Director, World Food Programme (WFP):
“Starvation is spreading. We had a formalized IPC report a few weeks ago already pointing to the entire population being acutely food insecure and 500,000 people in starvation. And since then, certainly it hasn't gotten better. If anything, it's much worse now. Malnutrition is surging. You might have seen the numbers from UNICEF -90,000 children now in urgent need of treatment for malnutrition. One in three, people in Gaza go for days without eating.”
4. Wide shot, press briefing room
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Carl Skau, Deputy Executive Director, World Food Programme (WFP):
“I mean, I think it's important to point to the displacement situation. You know, I've said before that I've met families who have moved maybe two or three times. Now it's a situation where I meet families who have moved two or three times in the past ten days. They have moved 20 or 30 times, and obviously every time they are able to bring less and the margins to survive become slimmer.”
6. Wide shot, press briefing room
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Carl Skau, Deputy Executive Director, World Food Programme (WFP):
“But secondly also our ability to respond, to assist as humanitarians have never been more constrained. Of course, it was more constrained during the 80 days, we were not able to get anything in. But in terms of having some assistance in and being able to operate, I've never seen the situation like it is now. And the first issue is obviously the amount that we are able to, to bring in. It's just a fraction of what's needed. For a period after that blockade was lifted, we were able to maybe do 20 or 30 tracks per day. I mean, that's far from enough. And it has driven up the prices of any basic commodity. When I was on the ground last week, the price of a kilo of wheat flour was over $25.”
8. Wide shot, press briefing room
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Carl Skau, Deputy Executive Director, World Food Programme (WFP):
“The operating environment also for our teams, it's just impossible. Some 85 percent now of the territory, there are active military operations. Our teams get stuck in waiting for clearances and at checkpoints, often spending between 15 to 20 hours straight in the armored vehicles trying to escort our convoys. There's not enough fuel. There is not enough spare parts to our vehicles. Most of the windows in our armored vehicles have been damaged, and we don't have basic communication. Radio, antennas from our cars have been ripped off. And so, if you are more than 20 metres away from each other, we don't have proper communication. And that, it is really an issue when you are in this kind of environment.”
10. Wide shot, press briefing room
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Carl Skau, Deputy Executive Director, World Food Programme (WFP):
“We have been actively engaging with Israeli authorities over the past few weeks. I was there, I met with them at different levels. There were some agreements in terms of improving the condition. They hear us that what we're doing now, cannot continue. There were commitments around the volume, around faster movements, around not having IDF present when we move our convoys or through our distributions, our ability to do direct distribution with different kinds of food parcels were recognized. And also the fact that we need some of these basic equipment to do our work.”
12. Wide shot, press briefing room
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Carl Skau, Deputy Executive Director, World Food Programme (WFP):
“We are ready to do that again. We have enough food on the borders to deliver to the entire population for some two months. But obviously we need that ceasefire and we need conditions within that ceasefire, and I think that's important. There was last time around the humanitarian protocol. I would imagine that there is, again, going to be a humanitarian protocol. And it's important that the provision in that protocol allows for all routes to open up.”
14. Wide shot, press briefing room
World Food Programme (WFP) deputy chief Carl Skau said, “one in three people in Gaza goes for days without eating.” He once again called for a ceasefire and the access for humanitarian aid, the Programme has "enough food on the borders to be delivered to the entire population for some two months," he said.
The Deputy Executive Director briefed reporters today (11 Jul) in New York on his recent visit to Gaza.
“Starvation is spreading,” Skau said, referring to the recent IPC report a few weeks ago pointing to the entire population being acutely food insecure and 500,000 people in starvation, he added, “it's much worse now. Malnutrition is surging.”
The senior WFP official also highlighted the displacement in the Strip. He said, “I've met families who have moved maybe two or three times. Now it's a situation where I meet families who have moved two or three times in the past ten days. They have moved 20 or 30 times, and obviously every time they are able to bring less and the margins to survive become slimmer
Skau also said that the Programme’s ability to response and assist as humanitarians “have never been more constrained.”
“The first issue is obviously the amount that we are able to bring in. It's just a fraction of what's needed,” he explained, adding that the price of a kilo of wheat flour was over $25 during his visit last week.
Skau described the operating environment for his team as “impossible.”
He said, “Some 85 percent now of the territory, there are active military operations. Our teams get stuck in waiting for clearances and at checkpoints, often spending between 15 to 20 hours straight in the armored vehicles trying to escort our convoys.”
“There's not enough fuel. There are not enough spare parts to our vehicles. Most of the windows in our armored vehicles have been damaged, and we don't have basic communication. Radio, antennas from our cars have been ripped off. And so, if you are more than 20 metres away from each other, we don't have proper communication. And that, it is really an issue when you are in this kind of environment, he added.
The Deputy Executive Director also informed the reporters that WFP has been “actively engaging with Israeli authorities over the past few weeks.”
He noted that there were some agreements in terms of improving the conditions, but the implementation of the agreements is not yet enough.
Skau reiterated that WFP has enough food on the borders to deliver to the entire population for some two months, “but obviously we need that ceasefire and we need conditions within that ceasefire.”
