UNDP PAPP/Abed Zagout. In Gaza, the recurring cycle of violence, the physical destruction caused by successive hostilities, and demographic pressures have affected all aspects of social and economic development.
In a briefing to the Security Council today, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi said that humanitarian workers are under pressure to go it alone and face an increasingly dangerous environment for assistance amid ongoing conflicts and too little "political capital" to devote to peace. To that end, he called on the Council to speak with one voice and address the root causes of each crisis.
Grandi began by updating a worrying figure: the number of refugees and displaced people worldwide has reached 114 million.
He noted that forced displacement was a consequence of the failure to maintain peace and security, and that brutal conflicts continued to be the main drivers of this phenomenon. He said frankly that over the past three weeks, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has proved that disregard for the basic rules of war is increasingly becoming the norm rather than the exception, and that innocent civilians are being killed to an unprecedented level.
"Serious miscalculation" on the Israeli-Palestinian issue
Grandi argues that over the years, there has been a serious miscalculation in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: time and again, temporary ceasefires have been used to counter the resurgence of violence, which is more of a stopgap measure than a real peace.
He said it was time to see that there would be no peace in the region and the world without a just solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, including an end to the Israeli occupation.
The "war puzzle" is constantly expanding
Grandi stressed that while UNHCR does not have a mandate to operate in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, it is clear that "this latest and deadliest round of violent conflict has the potential to ripple across the wider region and have catastrophic consequences." In these places, UNHCR is working to protect and assist displaced persons with a view to addressing their plight.
He also warned that the conflict in Gaza is the latest and perhaps the largest piece of the most dangerous "war puzzle" that is nearing completion. He also pointed out that each new crisis seems to push previous crises into oblivion, but those crises do not go away on their own.
Grandi mentioned that nearly 6 million people have been forced to flee their homes due to the armed conflict in Sudan for more than half a year, of which more than 1 million have become refugees in neighbouring countries. In Armenia, 100,000 refugees fled the Karabakh region in a matter of days, the result of yet another decades-old unresolved conflict; In Ukraine, the suffering of civilians caused by the Russian invasion continues, with more than 11 million people displaced.
The authority of the Council is no longer there
Addressing each of these crises requires a "strong and unified voice" from the Security Council, according to Grandi, to carry "the authority conferred by the Charter of the United Nations." But he admits that the world can no longer hear this voice, and that it is "-for-tat and fragmentation that drowns it out".
"As a United Nations player who believes in multilateralism, I simply can't accept that," he said. ”
Humanitarian work is approaching a tipping point
In this case, "humanitarian workers are being called upon to pick up the pieces and help more people in more places". Grandi pointed out that in the current world of extreme chaos, aid is not only often constrained by a dangerous political environment, but also largely hampered by a lack of funding.
He said that UNHCR alone urgently needed $600 million by the end of the year and that the funding prospects for next year were rather bleak. In addition, UNRWA, WFP, UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) are facing the same financial dilemma.
"I don't know how long I'm going to last like this," Grandi said. While humanitarian workers are resilient, we are approaching a tipping point. ”
He concluded by asking the 15 members of the Security Council: "Do you continue to allow more conflict, your disunity or sheer indifference to complete this 'jigsaw puzzle' of war, or do you take bold and necessary steps to pull back from the precipice?" ”
