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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