EU foreign policy chief compares Gaza destruction with German cities in WWII
UNRWA’s commissioner general says attacks on the agency’s reputation were intended to strip Palestinians of refugee status, a day after independent report found Israel still hadn’t provided any evidence staff had links to terror groups.
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00:00The European Union's foreign policy chief has compared the scale of destruction across
00:06Gaza to damage to German cities in World War II.
00:10Josep Borrell was speaking during a plenary session of the EU Parliament on the bloc's
00:15response to the killing of humanitarian aid workers, journalists and civilians in Gaza.
00:23The cities in Gaza have been more destroyed than the German cities during the Second World
00:27War, just imagine the comparison.
00:31A recent interim damage assessment by the World Bank and by the United Nations, which
00:36has been supported financially by the European Union, assessed the direct damage of about
00:4390 billion.
00:47Meanwhile the head of UNWR said attacks on the Palestinian Support Agency were intended
00:52to strip Palestinians of their refugee status.
00:57Philippe Lazzarini made those remarks a day after a report was submitted following an
01:02investigation into UNWR over Israeli allegations that some of the agency's staff had assisted
01:08Hamas with the October 7th attacks on Israel.
01:13Those claims prompted at least 15 countries to suspend funding.
01:19I hope that with this report and the measure we will be putting in place that the last
01:27group of donors will get the necessary confidence to come back as a donor and partner of the
01:36agency.
01:38And German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier's second day of a three-day visit to Turkey
01:43was marked by more pro-Palestine protests to denounce Berlin's military support for
01:48Israel.
01:49This is a crime against humanity.
01:50All people who have a conscience should stand up for it.
01:51We are here today to stand up for it.
01:52We are here to stand up for the support that Steinmeier has given to Israel in Germany.
02:03Human rights lawyers said earlier this month that they had filed an urgent appeal against
02:08the German government to stop it exporting weapons to Israel.