'Insupportable' situation: UN humanitarian chief calls for 'humanitarian pauses' in Gaza

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00:00 The situation is very simply put, it is insupportable.

00:04 And to allow it to continue would be a travesty.

00:07 Civilians must be protected, their essential needs met,

00:11 wherever they are and wherever they decide to be.

00:15 The United Nations cannot be part of a unilateral proposal

00:21 to push hundreds of thousands of desperate civilians

00:26 in Gaza into so-called safe zones.

00:30 We cannot be part of this.

00:32 - We can now bring in our international affairs

00:34 commentator, Douglas Herbert.

00:35 Doug, you heard there from Martin Griffiths,

00:37 who said the situation is very simply insupportable.

00:41 He used the French word to drive his point across

00:44 to the French president, clearly making some in that room

00:47 quite uncomfortable with what he had to say.

00:49 - Well, not just what he has to say.

00:50 The UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs

00:53 has just said earlier today that as of this Thursday,

00:57 all of Gaza's 120 municipal water wells

01:00 are expected to, are slated to shut down.

01:06 And they're slated to shut down

01:07 because they don't have fuel to run.

01:09 Not enough fuel, if any, is really getting to them.

01:12 Why is that a big deal?

01:13 That's a big deal because that's the UN saying it.

01:16 Now the World Health Organization takes that information

01:19 and is warning of, it's already seeing in fact,

01:22 a surge as they see it, a spike in diseases,

01:25 such as chickenpox, such as scabies, such as diarrhea,

01:29 especially in children under the age of five,

01:31 which is even more dangerous

01:32 when you're that very young age, and other diseases,

01:36 as you have deteriorating hygienic conditions,

01:38 lack of sanitation, overcrowded conditions,

01:42 all of it compounded by this lack of fuel

01:44 to have clean water, to treat water plants,

01:47 these water wells shutting down.

01:49 I will note that the Rafah border crossing,

01:51 we've been talking about that, the aid trucks coming in,

01:54 the Jordanian, I believe it was the Jordanian representative

01:57 at today's conference,

01:58 addressed the aid getting through Rafah.

02:01 Now he said that before,

02:02 we keep talking about this number before October 7th,

02:05 before this latest war,

02:07 about 500 humanitarian aid convoys

02:10 were getting through on average a day.

02:12 Now that's down to, if we're lucky, Delano,

02:15 if we're lucky, 100.

02:16 He said, but even before the conflict,

02:18 we're holding up that 500 number

02:20 as if it's an ideal target.

02:22 He said, even then, it was severely inadequate,

02:25 the 500 getting through.

02:27 And right now, as of the time I'm standing here

02:30 speaking to you, when we're talking about water,

02:31 going back to the question of life sustaining water,

02:34 we all need to drink water,

02:36 only 4%, 4%, that's less than 1/20th

02:40 of Gaza's water needs are being met at the moment

02:44 by water trucks and aid trucks coming through at Rafah.

02:48 That gives you just a little snapshot

02:49 of one aspect of the humanitarian calamity.

02:52 - I spoke to someone yesterday who said

02:54 we're wasting a space on those humanitarian convoys

02:57 with plastic water bottles

03:00 because they need them for Gaza.

03:02 Let's talk about, we're talking about the situation in Gaza,

03:05 which is very important,

03:06 the conference today happening in Paris,

03:09 but also the situation in the West Bank,

03:10 which continues to worsen.

03:13 Just today, we had five Palestinians killed in Jenin.

03:16 - It's hard to keep track, you know, the latest numbers,

03:20 and everyone risks just becoming another statistic, right?

03:22 We throw out a number here, a number there.

03:24 Look, since October 7th, the number of Palestinians,

03:28 and remember, there's millions of Palestinians

03:30 in the occupied West Bank,

03:32 more than actually the 2 1/2 million in Gaza.

03:35 Since October 7th, over 160,

03:38 at least 160 Palestinians have been killed,

03:41 killed in violence,

03:43 predominantly due to Israeli army raids,

03:47 raids that had been ongoing almost nightly

03:49 in various parts of the West Bank,

03:50 even before October 7th,

03:52 but which have become even more prevalent

03:54 or perhaps more noticeable since October 7th,

03:57 but also, and this is what's really attracted the attention

03:59 of a lot of the Europe and US

04:01 and the international community,

04:02 is these attacks by illegal Israeli settlers.

04:06 I'm using the word illegal because under international law,

04:08 they're not recognized, these settlements,

04:10 and the settlers are often armed,

04:12 and they are there illegally.

04:13 Most of them, perhaps not all of them,

04:15 but most of them are there for ideological reasons,

04:19 because they believe that that is their land

04:21 going back to biblical times.

04:23 They have a birthright to be there.

04:25 No one is going to force them to leave,

04:27 and they are willing to defend that right

04:29 as they see it to be there with arms,

04:31 and they've been using those arms,

04:33 according to the reports of Palestinians on the ground,

04:36 organizations on the ground, reporters on the ground.

04:39 So over 160 killed.

04:41 Joe Biden himself has warned

04:43 against this alarming spike in settler attacks

04:48 in the West Bank, and this is perhaps really

04:51 the focus of concern right now,

04:53 especially what the US has labeled.

04:55 Even the US has labeled this,

04:57 for all its pro-Israeli stance,

04:59 US alarmed at what it seems as extremist violence

05:03 by these illegal armed settlers in the West Bank

05:06 targeting Palestinians.

05:08 - We'll see if the Israelis actually act on that.

05:10 I wanna take you back to the conference,

05:12 because of course France is playing host

05:14 to this Gaza aid conference.

05:16 France has been in a tricky position

05:17 because at one point it is seeing

05:19 what is going on on the ground in Gaza, in the West Bank,

05:22 but at the same time, President Emmanuel Macron

05:25 reiterating Israel's right to defend itself.

05:27 - Yeah, listen, this conference, from Israel's standpoint,

05:31 Europe's voice is not that loud.

05:33 You know, at the end of the day,

05:34 we know it's become cliche to say

05:36 that all roads lead to Washington

05:38 when it comes to any chance,

05:40 however remote it might be of having an influence

05:43 on Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet

05:45 to at least rethink their course.

05:47 It's not Europe, it's not Emmanuel Macron sitting in France.

05:51 That's not to say it isn't an initiative,

05:53 an initiative perhaps that a lot of people

05:55 don't think absolutely needed to be taken.

05:57 There's never any harm talking about humanitarian aid,

05:59 given what we were talking about before.

06:00 It is a dire, calamitous need right now.

06:03 However, within France,

06:05 within the government itself, there are reports,

06:06 a lot of the French news outlets reporting,

06:09 there's friction within the French

06:11 foreign policy establishment

06:12 between those who see Macron's stance

06:14 as being too pro-Israel,

06:16 forcing him into this very, very untenable,

06:19 delicate tightrope act, this balancing act

06:21 between, as Washington's doing,

06:23 perhaps even more vocally,

06:25 defending Israel's right to defend itself

06:27 while at the same time stressing the absolute dire need

06:30 to protect civilians on the ground

06:31 and get humanitarian aid in.

06:32 A lot of people say,

06:33 in the France's foreign policy establishment,

06:35 not quoted, but off the record,

06:37 they'll say it's absurd not to call for a ceasefire,

06:40 as many of the Arab leaders

06:41 and people that Blinken was meeting with last week

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