REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Marie Heuzé, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing. John Ging, Director of Operations in Gaza for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, participated in the briefing from Gaza via conference call. Other Spokespersons who spoke represented the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization, the UN Children’s Fund, the GAVI Alliance, the UN Refugee Agency, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Economic Commission for Europe and the International Organization for Migration.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Heuzé said the Committee on the Rights of the Child had yesterday reviewed the third periodic report of the Netherlands, and a press release was available in English and in French. Today, the Committee was considering the initial report of the Netherlands to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. The meetings of the Committee, which would conclude its work on 30 January, were held at the Palais Wilson.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women would hold its
forty-third session at the Palais des Nations from 19 January to 6 February, Ms. Heuzé said. During that period, the Committee would consider reports from Dominica, Armenia, Haiti, Cameroon, Libya, Rwanda, Germany and Guatemala. A background press release was placed in the press room yesterday.

The Conference on Disarmament was holding the first public plenary of its 2009 session at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 20 January. A background press release had been issued yesterday. Ambassador Le Hoai Trung of Viet Nam would be presiding over the first meting of the Conference. This week, a working group made up of all the Presidents of the Conference who held the presidency during 2008 and those who would hold the presidency during 2009 was held this week to talk about the conditions needed to advance the work of the Conference.

Ms. Heuzé said available in the press room were copies of the Secretary-General’s statements on rockets fired from Lebanon against Israel, recent bombings and military clashes in southern Darfur, and the comments on the shelling of the UN compound in Gaza.

Situation in Gaza

Ms. Heuzé said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday conveyed his strong protest and outrage to the Defense Minister and to the Foreign Minister of Israel, and demanded a full explanation about the latest shelling of UN premises in Gaza. Mr. Ban met with Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday after he arrived in Israel after talks in Egypt and Jordan as part of his diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire and bring an end to the crisis in Gaza. The Secretary-General was expected to meet today in Ramallah with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

John Ging, Director of Operations in Gaza for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, participating in the briefing from Gaza via conference call, said the night before yesterday, the area around where the United Nations was located in Gaza was under heavy bombardment. The bombing intensified in the early morning yesterday. A lot of shrapnel had been landing in the compound. During this period, they had been in close liaison with the Israeli Defence Force. At 9 a.m. yesterday, there had been an influx of around 700 residents living around the UN compound who came seeking refuge which was offered to them, and they were put in the vocational training centre inside the UN complex. During this period, the UN had remained in close contact with the Israeli Defence Force. At around 10 a.m., a new round struck the compound in the centre where the 700 Palestinians were taking refuge, but luckily only three were injured. The UN informed the Israeli Defence Force immediately and was reassured that this would not happen again. As they were discussing the evacuation of the 700 refugees, six new rounds fell on the fuel depot, workshop and warehouse area of the UN compound. These rounds were witnessed in their fall by UN staff, including two international staff. They saw firsthand that these were phosphorous explosions. They looked, burnt and smell like phosphorous explosions. That whole area was set ablaze. They struggled to contain the fire as the fuel depot contained five trucks carrying tens of thousands of litres of fuel. The Israeli Defence Force was specifically told the location of these trucks because the UN was worried that if it was struck, there would be massive explosions. Unfortunately that was the area that was struck, but fortunately brave UNRWA staffers ran out and moved the trucks away from the fire.

Mr. Ging said water could not deal with phosphorous fires, and the fire service could not gain access to the compound for a couple of hours, so unfortunately the fire raged out of control. Once the fire service arrived, they concentrated on trying to contain the fire and to stop it from spreading to the rest of the compound. In all, the UN lost the workshop, the garage area and about 25 cars. The warehouse, with hundreds of tons of medical supplies, food, and non-food aid, that would have been taken to the distribution centres the same day, were also destroyed. That was a very big loss to the UN and now they had to source and locate alternative warehousing, so that the operations could continue to go on. They had done so. The UN operations continued throughout the day yesterday in other areas of the Gaza Strip, it was just the headquarters which was cut off. Today, they had found temporary warehousing and they were working to utilize that to ensure that there was no interruption beyond yesterday to the pipeline for getting the supplies out to the distribution centres. Another monetary loss was that of around 20 vehicles which were located near the vocational workshop and were damaged.

In response to a question on whether the Israeli side had offered to compensate the UN for the damage incurred, Mr. Ging said no offers had been made by the Israeli Government for compensation. It was not possible to specify exactly how much the UN lost, because the records also went up in flames. Also, as there were sufficient UN supplies in the West Bank and in Israel to compensate for what was lost, the supplies would continue to the refugees who had only felt one day of interruption.
However, it was a big logistical challenge for the UN.

Answering another question, Mr. Ging said there were two strikes on the UN compound within an hour of each other, and between them they were assured that there would not be another strike, so there would have to be accountability. Some Israeli spokespersons had alleged that there was firing from the UN compound, that was completely and utterly unsubstantiated and unfounded. This served to undermine and distract from what was a very unacceptable series of incidents against the whole humanitarian operation in Gaza. The UN was in contact with the Israelis in real time and they had all the information that they needed to ensure that nothing happened. But the Israeli interlocutors with the UN had acknowledged that that was not the case. There had to be accountability.

Elena Mancusi Materi of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East said after the hit on the UN Gaza compound yesterday, there was another incident at 1:25 p.m. Gaza time when the Israeli air force fired a missile reportedly targeting a car which they had been tracking and following. The car happened to be near an UNRWA school which was also used as a temporary emergency shelter. The missile missed the car but landed at the front gate of the school, wounding four children and an elderly man with shrapnel. UNRWA also opened eight new emergency shelters yesterday. They now had 45,000 people staying in UNRWA shelters. The total amount of displaced persons in Gaza was significantly higher than this. Today as in previous days, the north and the south of the Gaza strip were cut out from each other.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme said she had brought on operational update which was available at the back of the room. WFP had now reached more than 137,000 people out of its regular caseload. In addition to that, 30,000 people had now received bread or canned meat or high-energy biscuits. They were able to distribute to 6,000 people yesterday. WFP was also launching an operation lifeline Gaza to raise funds and bring in more ready to eat food. It hoped in coming days to be able to distribute 23,000 meals ready to eat for people in shelters and in hospitals. WFP believed that 80 percent of the non-refugee population of Gaza would be needing food assistance. For the people that WFP could reach with its food distribution, it would be providing a higher ration.

In response to a question, Ms. Casella said WFP was facing the same problem as did many other humanitarian agencies in that they were not able to reach all of the people who needed their help.

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said yesterday, a number of hospitals in Gaza had been attacked, patients evacuated and medical equipment damaged. Today at 11:30 a.m., there would be a press briefing with two persons who were on the ground and who would talk about the situation. A health situation report was also available.

Tony Laurance, Acting Head of the WHO Office for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, participating via conference call, said WHO deplored in the strongest possible terms the attacks that had been held against health personnel and health facilities, particularly the attacks yesterday on three hospitals. The most serious of the incidents was against the Al Quds Palestinian Red Crescent Hospital in Gaza City which was surrounded by soldiers last night. The administrative building and the pharmacy were directly shot at and there was a fire. The whole hospital had to be evacuated. The patients had now been moved to Shaifa Hospital, the main hospital in Gaza City. The El Fatah Hospital was also damaged yesterday by indirect fire. Windows were smashed, infrastructure was damaged and patients were evacuated. The Al Wafa Rehabilitation Hospital yesterday in east Gaza came under fire. Overall, this was a pattern in which 16 health facilities had been damaged, mostly be indirect fire, and 16 ambulances damaged or destroyed. The protection of health personnel was of vital improvement, as was access to the wounded. There would be huge challenges for the health care system, assuming that a ceasefire occurred in the near future.

Ms. Taveau said that at noon today, Sigrid Kaag, UNICEF’s regional director, would speak about the situation in Gaza by conference call.

Sigrid Kaag, UNICEF’s Regional Director, participating by conference call, said that more than 340 children had so far been killed in Gaza, these were deaths confirmed by the Ministry of Health, and more than 1,600 children had been injured. UNICEF had clearly stated the importance of the adherence to international humanitarian law since the beginning of the crisis, and that utmost care had to be taken by all parties to ensure that civilians and particularly children were protected to the maximum possible. The sad statistics showed they had not succeeded in this regard.

Bangladesh Introduces New Vaccine to Prevent Severe Forms of Child Pneumonia and Meningitis

Veronique Taveau of the UN Children’s Fund said available at the back of the room was an information note about a vaccination campaign in Bangladesh to introduce a new vaccine to prevent severe forms of child pneumonia and meningitis. This programme was the result of a joint initiative between UNICEF, WHO and the GAVI Alliance.

Ranjana Kumar of the GAVI Alliance said she was happy to come with some good news for children in one of the poorest countries in the world. Bangladesh yesterday introduced a vaccine against Haemophilus influenzae, a dreaded disease which caused meningitis and pneumonia in small children. The vaccine was introduced in Khulna District southwest of the capital Dhaka. The vaccine was expected to save at least 20,000 lives annually. A quarter of the children in Bangladesh died of pneumonia, so this vaccine would be very important. Currently GAVI was committed to help Bangladesh with about $ 95 million and Bangladesh would also give a small amount of co-financing of $ 5.6 million.

Attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army

Andrej Mahecici of the UN Refugee Agency said a joint UN team had managed to reach the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo village of Duru, scene of successive attacks by the so-called Lord’s Resistance Army. Duru was attacked by the Lord’s Resistance Army in September and then earlier this week, leaving four dead and the village a virtual ghost town. Survivors in Duru took the risk of venturing out of their hiding places to meet the visiting team. Many of the villagers were clad in rags and looked famished and weak after spending nights in the bush without blankets or shelter. They needed urgent assistance. Aid agencies faced enormous logistical challenges in getting to the affected communities. Duru could only be reached by helicopter with a security escort of UN peacekeepers. The death toll in the Oriental Province bordering Uganda and South Sudan was now estimated at 567 people since the start of the attacks by the Lord’s Resistance army last September.



Human Rights

Asked what had happened in terms of follow-up to the resolution passed by the Special Session of the Human Rights Council last Monday, Rolando Gomez of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said he had nothing new to add after what he said at last Tuesday’s briefing. The consultations continued by the President of the Council with a view to appointing this fact-finding team. The President had been in contact with concerned parties. He hoped they would be able to announce soon details of the fact-finding team.

In response to whether a conference call could be set up with Richard Falk, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said he would onpass the request to the assistant of the Special Rapporteur.

Other

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said the WHO Executive Council would be meeting from 19 to 27 January. A media alert had been sent out yesterday. There would be a public meeting to discuss the impact of the financial crisis on healthcare on 19 January. There would also be a press conference at 12:45 p.m. on 19 January.

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said available at the back of the room was information on the response to the Consolidated Appeal for the Occupied Palestinian Territory for 2009. The required figure was $ 532 million and $ 75.2 million had been received so far, which represented 14 per cent of the appeal. There were also $ 5.4 million in pledges.

Ms. Byrs said there was an update available on the earthquake which hit Costa Rica on 8 January. There was also more information about the situation of cholera in Zimbabwe. The cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe had still not been brought under control as shown by the recent daily increase of 1,550 new cases and 104 deaths from 13 to 14 January. There were more details in the information note.

Charlotte Griffiths of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe said available were two press releases on the meetings that would be held at the Palais on 20 January concerning the future of natural gas supply in the ECE region, looking at liquefied natural gas, the impact of the recent natural gas disruptions and other issues. The opening session would include a presentation by the head of the international business department of GAZPROM. He would also be willing to answer questions from journalists.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said the latest IOM needs assessment of Iraq’s internally displaced people was available. The focus was very much about the conditions that a growing number of internally displaced persons and refugees found on their return, finding their homes destroyed and key infrastructure in disrepair.

Ms. Heuzé said the Spokesperson for the World Trade Organization had left but had left details of all of next week’s meetings at WTO in the press room.