(15 May 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
United Nations – 14 May 2025
1. Wide of Tom Fletcher at UN headquarters
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“I think I chose my words sort of gently yesterday, and I hope that they speak for themselves. I’m not a lawyer. I’m a humanitarian. My job is to get the aid in to get the attention of the world, to help create the conditions to get that aid in and save as many lives as possible before it’s too late. But I also want to make sure that we weren’t making the mistake that was made with previous massive breaches of international law, where it hasn’t been called out soon enough. And so it was a challenge. It’s not for me to decide what we call it, but I want to make sure the international community is focused on this as an issue and is meeting its responsibilities.”
3. Fletcher at interview
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
"We want to deliver. Let us in. Let us do our work. And so that comes through all of our conversations with Israel. But these specific meetings, it’s 13 meetings now have been to look at the details of this so-called modality, so-called humanitarian funds as it’s been evolving and we’ve had meetings as well with some of those involved in it, and the Americans too to try to understand, is it something that can be made to work?
Can we find a way to make sure it’s compatible with our humanitarian principles – neutrality, impartiality – and so on. So we’ve made that effort, but it’s so far from being able to meet those conditions. As the SG has said, and as I have been saying, and that’s why we need to stick to the better plan, our plan A, which is just let us in. We can make sure this aid doesn’t get anywhere near Hamas. We have our procedures. We care more than anyone about making sure that aid gets to the children and civilians and women who need it most."
5. Wide of Fletcher
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:
“What I have heard is a system that to me feels very dehumanizing of the people who we are there to serve, the people whose needs we are there to meet, that has them, moved around, moved out of their own locations, deliberately displaced into holding pens, expected to show I.D. and so on in a very dehumanizing way that isn’t based on humanitarian need. And what’s clear, the lawyers say this to us, NGO partners and so on, is that if we were to acquiesce in a system like this in Gaza, we would be undermining our humanitarian principles globally. Others would start to say, well, why can’t we distribute aid in this way to the people that we choose should get it and align with military, political strategies. So that’s why it’s been so difficult for us to make any progress. It’s so far from our principles that we’ve not made the progress that we would have wanted to make.”
7. Fletcher at UN headquarters
STORYLINE:
The United Nations’ humanitarian chief has defended using the term “genocide” to describe what aid workers are trying to prevent in Gaza.
Tom Fletcher tells The Associated Press the world shouldn’t make the same mistakes seen in past violations of international law, when it wasn’t “called out soon enough.”
Israel vehemently denies the charge, one that many in the international community have been hesitant to make.
AP video shot by Ted Shaffrey
===========================================================
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/
You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/1bf29fd6b44648dfa963944382232a16
Author: AP Archive
Go to Source
News post in May 20, 2025, 6:04 pm.
Visit Our Sponsor’s:
News Post In – News
