UN relief chief: Aid access to Gaza main priority now
Martin Griffiths: Middle East crisis 16 October 2023
The UN's emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths on Monday expressed deep concern about the deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the fate of Israeli hostages, while also anticipating "good news" regarding aid access into southern Gaza from Egypt.
“History is watching,” Martin Griffiths told UN News in Geneva, highlighting the desperate situation facing around one million Gazans uprooted in recent days, after the Israeli military warned of an imminent offensive following the deadly 7 October attack on Israel by militant group Hamas.
“Aid access is our overwhelming priority. And we are in deep discussions hourly with the Israelis, with the Egyptians, with the Gazans about how to do that,” Mr. Griffiths said, adding that he was optimistic about hearing “some good news” soon that a solution could be found to the political impasse.
Emergency Relief Chief Martin Griffiths' statement on the Middle East crisis
Transcript of Mr. Griffiths' remarks
“We're living in the worst of times. The first thing I want to emphasize is the unacceptable, illegal act to take those hostages from Israel, many of whom, for God's sake, are children, women, old and sick, and keep them hidden in Gaza against some future eventuality. They have to be let out straight away.
Number two: the response to that egregious act also includes humanitarian rules of war. You cannot ask people to move out of harm's way without assisting them to do it, to go to places of their choice where they want to be safe and with the humanitarian aid that they need to make that journey safely.
And right now, the movement that has happened has not had those provisions and it must have it; hospitals are running out of fuel, are running out of supplies up in the north. People can't move without help.
Number three: we need access for aid. We are in deep discussions with the Israelis, with the Egyptians and with others, hugely helped by Secretary Blinken in his travels around the region. And I'm hoping to hear some good news this morning about getting aid through Rafah, one of the crossing points but an important one, into Gaza to help those million people who have moved south as well as those who live there already. So, rules of war, aid, access.
I shall be going myself tomorrow to the region to try to help in the negotiations, to try to bear witness and to express solidarity with the extraordinary courage of the many thousands of aid workers who have stayed the course and who are still there helping the people in Gaza and in the West Bank.
And I want to leave you with one final thought. History tells us that an act of war has consequences which are often unconsidered, when people move into those acts of war. We have seen this movie far too often before. We need to be concerned about creating a situation - absurd as it may seem at the moment - where Israelis and Palestinians can live as neighbours, as friends, ideally, certainly as interlocutors, where they do not need to teach each other lessons through war.
Thank you.”