Virtual
ADMINISTRATOR SAMANTHA POWER: Thank you so much. Thanks to everyone for joining us from around the world. It's really heartening to see so many people make time to gather in this way. And in addition to making some comments, please know that we have our – some of our best technical experts and humanitarians who are involved in working with humanitarian organizations to try to address some of those logistic challenges. Of course, our challenges are not merely logistic. But when we open [the conversation] up, there may be occasion in which we invite them to contribute perspectives as well.
I just want to start by saying that our hearts, of course, go out with those mourning their loved ones this week after Israel's strike in Rafah on Sunday killed at least 45 people, many of whom were in tent camps seeking refuge from the violence. Further strikes, it looks like, in Rafah have since killed at least 21 more.
Civilians, as you all know, are paying a devastating and unacceptable price in this war, particularly in the wake of the IDF’s expanded operations in Rafah. So I felt it’s important to come back together – we’ve done this a few times – to update one another on our humanitarian response efforts and discuss how we can best work together in the face of really unusual challenges.
For months now, President Biden and officials across our Administration, myself included, have made clear to Israel that a major ground military operation in Rafah would put civilians at immense risk and imperil the humanitarian response. Despite currently more limited military operations around Rafah and the Egypt/Gaza border, the catastrophic consequences that we have long warned about are becoming a reality.
Since the escalation of hostilities in Rafah, more than a million Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced. That is more than 45 percent of Gaza’s population displaced in just the past few weeks – many of whom were in Rafah seeking safety after already being forced to relocate multiple times by the war. The majority of these people are in need of shelter – with hundreds of thousands lacking even a tent. Our partners, and I’m sure yours as well, have told us it feels like the war is starting all over again – and conditions are worse now than at any period before, given everything that has happened in the ensuing months.
Ninety-five percent of the population has not had access to clean water for months, and water-borne diseases and illnesses have skyrocketed – yet roughly 80 percent of Gaza’s health centers are non-operational.
Over a million people are facing catastrophic levels of hunger – and virtually all 2.3 million people in the Gaza Strip require emergency food assistance. Yet IDF military operations have closed the Rafah crossing since early May, and persistent Hamas rocket attacks near Kerem Shalom, and intense fighting, have made multiple food warehouses difficult to access, creating severe shortages that were exacerbated by Egypt’s unwillingness to send aid through Kerem Shalom.
On Friday, at the urging of President Biden, President [Abdel Fattah] Sisi did agree to resume the flow of aid and fuel through KS [Kerem Shalom], providing a desperately needed lifeline to people in Gaza. Although challenges persist, following this important agreement, we were pleased to see aid trucks moving through Kerem Shalom since Sunday.
But we know the flow is far from sufficient. The fact remains that due to the military operations and very limited flow of aid through the remaining crossings, the UN is running out of food commodities for hundreds of thousands of repeatedly displaced people in Gaza.
In light of these catastrophic conditions, we are in daily conversation still with the Government of Israel and our humanitarian partners about the urgency of protecting both those remaining in Rafah, and those who are again being displaced. And it’s imperative for us to work together to mobilize humanitarian and diplomatic resources to save lives. So I want to make three urgent asks in closing here and before opening the floor.
First, although there is so much else to focus on, we can't lose sight of funding. To help meet these extraordinary needs, the U.S. government has [previously] announced $180 million in humanitarian aid to Palestinians, which is going to shelter; water, sanitation, and hygiene; health, and it includes two field hospitals; it is also going to protection assistance; and, of course, food. USAID is supporting WFP and two NGO partners to reach up to 60 percent of the population in need with food each month.
But the unmet need is enormous. We are grateful to the bipartisan effort in our own Congress to finally pass the National Security Supplemental last month. That includes $1 billion for additional humanitarian aid for Palestinian civilians impacted by the crisis. I hope you will consider upping your commitments to the UN and others delivering lifesaving assistance.
Second, I hope you will join us in pushing for humanitarian access through every single possible entry point. Land crossings are the absolute foundation to ensuring that commodities reach people in Gaza – land crossings are going to remain the principal avenues for aid delivery. And we need to stress to Israel and Egypt the vital importance of opening all crossings, keeping them functioning at maximum capacity, prioritizing the passage of humanitarian aid, and allowing the UN to collect and distribute goods from the Gaza side of crossings. We also need to increase assistance going through the port of Ashdod and on to these land crossings – fully utilizing Israel’s commitment to what it calls an “open Ashdod” – this, of course, is not yet happening.
We hope you will join us in contributing to the new maritime corridor, which is only supplemental, to stress. While the pier, as you’ve seen in the news, sustained damage over the weekend, it is being repaired and should soon resume function. When operating at full capacity, it will facilitate the movement of assistance for at least 500,000 people per month. We encourage you to consider increasing support to this effort through the UN fund, the Republic of Cyprus Amalthea fund, or in-kind assistance of high priority humanitarian commodities, that would be food, nutritional therapies, medical relief items, and of course shelter.
Third and finally, I’d ask for you to amplify the message on the need to protect civilians and humanitarian workers and operations – humanitarian workers and operations need the fuel and the access that they need to do their work. We continue to engage with Israeli officials on the need for more effective deconfliction mechanisms that enable humanitarians to safely operate. That means protecting civilian infrastructure like hospitals and schools. It means facilitating permits and visas for aid workers so they can operate unhindered. It means implementing stronger safeguards within the Humanitarian Notification System – through written IDF procedures clear to soldiers and humanitarian partners alike, as well as real-time communications lines to the IDF and direct access to high level commanders in the event of an emergency. The system I've just described does not yet exist sufficiently.
No matter what funding our countries commit, if humanitarians can’t move aid forward safely for distribution, if they can’t fuel their trucks, if they can’t access border crossings, then the devastation will only grow.
I want to thank each and every one of you for overcoming enormous obstacles to get lifesaving assistance to civilians in Gaza. We are all doing everything we can to push for a ceasefire and the release of the hostages – but in the meantime, we must do everything we can to mitigate the suffering of millions of civilians now.
With my thanks for your continued commitment, I’ll turn it over to our Assistant to the Administrator of the Bureau for Planning, Learning and Resource Management again Michele Sumilas, who is going to moderate our roundtable.