{"id":253121,"date":"2021-05-26T17:35:47","date_gmt":"2021-05-26T21:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/?post_type=document&p=253121"},"modified":"2021-06-07T17:39:02","modified_gmt":"2021-06-07T21:39:02","slug":"crossings-open-humanitarian-aid-enters-gaza-26-may-2021-daily-press-briefing-excerpts","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/crossings-open-humanitarian-aid-enters-gaza-26-may-2021-daily-press-briefing-excerpts\/","title":{"rendered":"Crossings Open, Humanitarian Aid Enters Gaza \u2013 26 May 2021 Daily Press Briefing \u2013 (Excerpts)"},"content":{"rendered":"

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING BY STEPHANE DUJARRIC<\/strong><\/p>\n

SPOKESPERSON FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL ANT\u00d3NIO GUTERRES<\/strong><\/p>\n

WEDNESDAY, 26 MAY 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n

\/…<\/p>\n

OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY\u00a0<\/strong>
\nThe Erez\u00a0crossing remains\u00a0open for international humanitarian staff, but still not open\u00a0for\u00a0Palestinian travelers, including humanitarian personnel and\u00a0medical referrals.<\/p>\n

The Kerem Shalom crossing is open and humanitarian goods are going in today.<\/p>\n

And the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza is also open.<\/p>\n

\/…<\/p>\n

Questions and Answers<\/u><\/p>\n

\/…<\/p>\n

Question<\/u>:\u00a0 My second question, is the UN prepared to do any investigation of the UN properties damaged in this latest conflict in Gaza?<\/p>\n

Spokesman<\/u>:\u00a0 We\u2019ll, obviously, assess the damage, and if anything comes out of that, we will let you know.<\/p>\n

Mr.\u00a0Avni?<\/p>\n

Question<\/u>:\u00a0 And my last question.<\/p>\n

Spokesman<\/u>:\u00a0 Oh, sorry.<\/p>\n

Question<\/u>:\u00a0 Sorry.\u00a0 Mr.\u00a0[Yahya] Sinwar, the chief of Hamas in Gaza, he\u2019s threatened today that, unless the chronic problems of Gaza are addressed and solved, they are willing to go back to fighting.\u00a0 Would that resonate with UN?\u00a0 [cross talk]<\/p>\n

Spokesman<\/u>:\u00a0 I think\u2026 what we do not want to see is a return to fighting.\u00a0 We do not want to see anything that will increase the suffering of civilian population, whether they be in Gaza or whether they be in Israel.\u00a0 [cross talk] I mean, the civilians are always the first ones to pay.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why the Secretary-General, I think, was very clear for\u2026 calling for a resumption of a political process.<\/p>\n

Question<\/u>:\u00a0 But keeping the largest human prison on Earth for 13\u00a0years under siege, is that acceptable?\u00a0 [cross talk]<\/p>\n

Spokesman<\/u>:\u00a0 We want to see a political solution that will bring benefits of peace and prosperity to civilians.<\/p>\n

\/…<\/p>\n

Questions, two questions, actually, one about\u2026 you were asked yesterday about an interview that Mr.\u00a0[Matthias] Schmale gave to an Israeli TV.\u00a0 Today, he retracted some of his statements.\u00a0 Can you\u2026 is there anything that the Secretary-General or you can say about the discrepancy between what he said yesterday about precision of Israeli targeting and also about the fact that there were no lack of basic needs in Gaza during the 11\u00a0war\u2026 11-day war and his retraction today?\u00a0 So, where are we in real life?<\/p>\n

Spokesman<\/u>:\u00a0 Where are we in real life?\u00a0 In real life, especially with the announcement of the appeal tomorrow, is we will do whatever we can to help civilians in Gaza, to bring as much aid in.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not going to provide colour commentary on the interview.\u00a0 I mean, I think, if you want further comments, go to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees).\u00a0 What I did yesterday, which I would continue to do, is defend our\u2026 my colleague, who is a dedicated humanitarian.\u00a0 But in terms of what was said in the interview, what was not said, what was retracted, I would encourage you to go to UNRWA.<\/p>\n

Question<\/u>:\u00a0 And I have a follow-up.\u00a0 I noticed that during the last week\u2026 the entire last week, pretty much every day, you urged opening of the crossings, and you talked about it today.\u00a0 There were, in the 19th and the 20th, which is last week, openings\u2026 very short-time openings, and there was shooting at the crossings from Gaza.\u00a0 Do you have any comment on that?\u00a0 Is that something that\u2026 because it wasn\u2019t mentioned in your briefings.\u00a0 [cross talk]<\/p>\n

Spokesman<\/u>:\u00a0 Benny, it was.\u00a0 I mentioned the short opening.\u00a0 I mentioned the fact that it had to close down to security reasons.\u00a0 Our colleagues on the ground, after the briefing, made it clear that one of the reasons it had to re-close was because there were rockets coming in\u2026 or there was fire\u2026 I don\u2019t know exactly what type of artillery, but there was shooting of some kind from the Gaza side, which forced the closure of the crossings.\u00a0 But I did mention it, and my colleagues in the region made a very\u2026 tweeted about it, so there was nothing\u2026 nothing was not said.<\/p>\n

\/…<\/p>\n

For information media. Not an official record.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING BY STEPHANE DUJARRIC SPOKESPERSON FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL ANT\u00d3NIO GUTERRES WEDNESDAY, 26 MAY 2021 \/… OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY\u00a0 The Erez\u00a0crossing remains\u00a0open for international humanitarian staff, but still not open\u00a0for\u00a0Palestinian travelers, including humanitarian personnel and\u00a0medical referrals. The Kerem Shalom crossing is open and humanitarian goods are going in today. And the Rafah crossing […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"template-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[2573],"document-source":[5352,6169,1817],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[2517,1769,1945,2265,2405,2005,2533,5200],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[],"class_list":["post-253121","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-highlights-of-the-noon-briefing","document-source-secretary-general","document-source-united-nations-department-of-global-communications","document-source-united-nations-relief-and-works-agency-for-palestine-refugees-in-the-near-east-unrwa","document-subject-access-and-movement","document-subject-armed-conflict","document-subject-assistance","document-subject-ceasefire","document-subject-closure-of-institutions","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-health","document-subject-humanitarian-relief","entity-united-nations-system"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/253121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/253121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=253121"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=253121"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=253121"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=253121"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=253121"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=253121"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=253121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}