Welcome to the press briefing.
Today is Friday, 27th of June here at the UN in Geneva.
And we will start immediately with our topic of the day, who is the health crisis?
In addition to Doctor Rick Paper calling that I don't need to introduce to you anymore and thanks very much, Rick to be here.
We also have another colleague, Luca Pigotzi, who is also from AWHO and who is coming in from from Gaza.
He's, as you know, emergency medical team coordinator in Gaza for WHO?
So I will give the floor, maybe with Christian first to introduce and and give the floor.
I don't know who wants to start from the field.
Christian, you want to start And then we go to our invitees.
Thank you very much, Alessandra.
So thank you very much for Rick and very glad to also have in the current situation Peluca with us last moment to talk right out of Gaza while Rick is talking from Jerusalem.
And over to you, Rick, good morning.
I hope you can hear me loud and clear.
Good morning to all greets from Jerusalem.
So I want to start with a bit of focus on the West Bank first and then I will switch over to Gaza and hand over to my colleague, Dr Luca Picosi for a specific topic.
So on the West Bank, we really want to stress that the health crisis in the West Bank is worsening.
It's driven by intensified military prisons and operations, rising settler violence, repeated attacks from healthcare and severe access restrictions that continue to obstruct delivery of vital services.
Let me focus on access to healthcare after 559 health facilities assessed by WHL in June, 71 health facilities including 43 Ministry of Health facilities face partial accessibility due to insecurity, physical barriers.
We see closures including earth mounds, Rd gates blocking entrances, some villages.
Frequent and limited hour checkpoint operations continue to obstruct access to healthcare for patients and ambulances.
Almost 7000 people in 10 communities in Area C have minimal access to primary healthcare due to access restriction delays, checkpoints and specifically Nablus sulphate, Alkaea etcetera.
The Hebrew and refusal issue permits in Jenin Mobile Mobile Clinical team so prevented them from to reach those communities in the so-called Area C and obstructing their rights and their needs to access to health.
In some areas, full closures are when full closure imposed during military operations or excess is obstructed by closed gates.
For ongoing movement restrictions, ambulances must secure prior coordinations to transfer patients heading four to five hours to delays and putting lives at risk.
To avoid these delays, families are often forced to carry patients to gates where they must cross on foot to reach the ambulances waiting on the other sides.
When you talk about attacks on healthcare, again the mandate of The Who 2 reports to analyse and to to to report on.
As of mid June 2025, WHO documented 888 hundred 44 attacks on healthcare in the West Bank since October 23, resulting in 31 death and 168 injuries.
Attacks affected 65 health facility, 24 mobile clinics, 567 ambulances.
67% of the attacks occurred in the cities around Tukaram, Janine and Avalos.
They include attacks on health infrastructure, ambulances, detention of health workers and patients, obstruction of their access to health facilities, use of force for health workers and militarised searches of ambulances and staff.
So when you talk about healthcare availability overall, there's another issue and we've raised it I think in the past as well.
The long standing fiscal crisis faced by the Palestinian Authority is further impacting the health system and has been worsened by the Israel.
Israel's increased real holding of tax revenues meant for the occupied Palestinian territory since 7 October 2023 and the overall deteriorations of economic situation in the Apache.
So of the 476 government health service units assessed by WHO and partners, only 345 are fully functional.
The primary constraints effective functionality are staff shortages due to many health works not receiving or partly receiving the salaries and lack of supplies.
According to the Ministry of Health.
Just to talk about supplies, 16% of the total essential medicines, 40% of the medical consumables and 9% of the lab supplies are 0 top balance 7 vaccines, including Rota, BCG, pneumococcal vaccines.
In addition to month 2 tests are completely depleted with reported delays in ship shipments, critical shortages for reported for our report for anti radius vaccine, essential lab supplies, emergency medical issues including paracetamol in so many instances.
So these shortages stem from limited local market availability and increase in the price of essential medical supplies, recurrent border closures and increasing restrictions imposing limits on the import medical supplies and medicines.
So we supported the Ministry of Health with procurement essential medications.
We preposition supply at key hospitals across the West Bank, including E Jerusalem.
To cope with current shortages of medicines.
We bring specific equipment to respond to mass casualty incidents have been pre positioned in seven key Ministry of Health hospitals along West Bank.
It conducts community trauma management training for first aid responders in the affected communities to boost emergency preparedness and allow them to provide timely care to to those injured in case of delays of ambulance arrivals due to excess restrictions.
We support out a role of training for health work on newborn and child health.
And we have supported 200 and Andrew health workers primary working in refugee camps trained on primary trauma trauma care.
Let me shift now to Gaza Strip and and after that to my colleague Dr Luca.
So just two days ago, on 25th of June, WHO delivered its first medical shipment into Gaza since the 2nd of March.
We've had the long blockade, A blockade, all the issues around that.
So 9 trucks carrying essential medicines, including 2000 units of blood and 1500 units of plasma.
The supplies were transported from Kerik Shalom without any looting incidents.
Despite the high risk conditions along the route, it was meticulously planned and I really want to thank the team, The Who team at all levels, but also the ONE UN and the Ministry of Health community and the community leaders to make sure that these medical supplies and the blood blood units were in straight away delivered to the hospitals and to the Derby WHO warehouses.
So the supplies will be further on distributed proprietary priority hospitals in the coming days.
And I said plot and plasma were directly delivered to national level complex cold storage facilities.
From there, they will go to onward distribution to other hospitals facing critical shortages mark growing influx of injuries, many linked to incidents at the so-called food distribution site.
The delivery of blood to plasma are extremely critical given Gaza was about to run out and needs are immense.
Health facilities, which under normal circumstances require approximately 3000 blood units per month, are now facing an estimated demand for 4 1/2 to 8000 units monthly.
This increase is driven by the frequent mass casualty incidents we see.
The nature of the complex blast injuries and the rising number of surgical and obstetric emergency plot is also needed to support some patients with chronic diseases.
The mission is ongoing to get four other WHL trucks today from Karen Shalom and they are hopefully on route as well and we hope to have the same results.
However, in conclusion, I want to really make the point these medical supplies which are now delivered and delivered safely.
So we thank everyone for that.
They are a drop in the ocean.
We need so much more medical aid, medical supplies, essential medicines.
There is tonnes of trucks waiting in Ala Rich and at other places, not just from WHL.
Do you want to mention other, other UNHUNFBA, UNICEF, etcetera, They also have trucks lined up.
So we call for an immediate, unimpeded and sustained delivery of health aids into Gaza through all possible routes.
Next week, I plan to be in Gaz for another mission, and we will plan another update for you from there.
Over Now to Doctor Luca Pigotzi for some additional information on Gaza with a focus on emergency medical teams.
Let me see if we can catch you again.
You appeared and let me see for my colleagues, see if we can catch you back.
Christian, you have your hand up.
Just to say that I see him clearly on the screen ready to talk so.
You, you see better than me then.
If he's here, please just Doctor Pigotti.
I'm afraid there is an issue here.
Go ahead and we can see you.
As was announced by Doctor Rick Peppercorn, I am going to just deep dive a bit on the emergency medical teams and their impressive contribution to this response under the coordination of The Who.
So, the EMTs emergency medical Teams are structured groups of medical professionals who deploy either nationally or internationally to respond to public health emergencies or humanitarian crisis.
Specifically, in the Gaza response, under the coordination of WHO, we could deploy more than 50 teams in total.
We created the three trauma stabilisation points in different moments of the response, 5 filled hospitals in total, providing more than 500 beds to indeed contribute to the distressed health system.
And cumulatively since January 2024, the EMTs provided 3 millions of medical consultations.
So they doubled the the population of Gaza in their assistance in terms of patients care and they performed more than 40,000 surgical interventions.
It's really remarkable in terms of efforts and contribution to the overall response and provision of high quality medical care.
When we come to challenges, as it was mentioned before, one of the major challenges that is hampering at the moment the ability of EMTs to perform medical care is the lack of medical supply and equipment.
It's important to remember that almost 50% of the medical stock is completely depleted across the Gaza Strip and what we have been entering since since 2 days is only a drop in the ocean.
I really want to quote again my colleague, Doctor Rick Peppercorn, on that.
Secondly, another major challenge is represented by safety and security, including for healthcare workers and healthcare facilities.
Healthcare facilities, ambulances and workers have becoming under attack more and more.
The two major hospitals in the Gaza Strip, specifically Shifa Medical Complex and NASA Medical Complex have been under attack persistently since the beginning of the crisis and in different times of the response they have, they have to force to shut down their entire activities leaving LAX in critical secondary and tertiary medical services.
Definitely, the EMTs reacted and try to reactivate these surgical maternal care and services relating to internal medicine, intensive care unit and hemodialysis, but definitely not enough and we don't have the guarantees that security can improve and ameliorate anytime soon.
Finally, the access to the Strip procedures are idly bureaucratic and difficult and we are facing high rate of denies, denials, sorry for international medical staff, including EMTs to come into Gaza.
And that's also something that is impeding very much the deployment of these teams and the performance of their medical activities.
So in conclusion, under the coordination of WHO, many teams, including 1000 foreigners, doctors and nurses have been deployed into Gaza Strip to boost the health response.
But this is again not enough.
And we definitely ask for more security and safety conditions for them to operate, more access to medical supply and physical access for these medical professionals to enter into Gaza Strip.
Thank you very much, Luca, and thanks, Peppercorn.
Just wanted to, well, I'll say this later on, but let's open the floor to questions now.
Start with Olivia Padman, Reuters.
Thanks for very much, both of you, for this briefing.
I was just wondering, Doctor Peppercorn or or Doctor Picard, see if you could just explain why the trucks have now been allowed in because I appreciate there's been some time that they've been thwarted from entering.
So what changed to allow those first trucks in?
And just on the four trucks that are currently on route into the strip, what are they carrying?
Is that also kind of the same bloods units that you're talking about or kind of other specific medications or equipment?
And I just wanted to check on the West Bank Dr Peppercorn that you said 844 attacks on healthcare since October 23.
Is that October 23 last year or October 2023?
Who wants to answer Rick or Luca or both?
Yeah, let me start and then and then Luca can maybe have.
So on the West Bank that the number of attacks was since October 2023, so 844 attacks on healthcare in the West Bank since October 2023 resulting in 31 deaths and 168 injuries.
On the, on your other question, I think we, we, you've seen, we had the April case, I think it was for almost 1212 weeks and then small supplies, well, I think UN was again allowed to bring in limited supplies.
We've seen WFP doing that as we had of course.
And I think we raised that in, in, in I think a former briefings that's for WHO and actually for other health markets as well.
Most of our supplies were stocked as stored at Alarish.
And we, we have, we constantly ask to open that route, to open all routes and, and, and I think we've raised this constantly 33 trucks, we're ready to go directly from Alaris and another 20 would be ready at any moment as well.
And more supplies would be coming in.
So we also have with WHO Dubai hub, where a lot of The Who medical supplies actually are stored for global emergencies.
We, we plan them for a large flight supported by, by ECHO, by the EU to come to Ben Gurion.
Then of course, fortunately we got in and that all is very costly it it has to be called.
But then we planned all for that and then we we got into the unfortunate Israel Iran war and then Guru was closed.
So we're still planning to get that plane in and then make sure it gets into Gaza.
Fortunately, a lot of discussion initially we were not allowed to get our supplies from the West Bank directly into Gaza WHO supply a lot of negotiations.
I don't want to go into detail, a little shifting on goal posts.
So finally we were allowed and that is what you saw that nine trucks 2 days ago and hopefully the four trucks today.
It's a mixture of what I also then thank the Ministry of Health with a mixture of of very much needed blood and blood products, but of course the whole mixture of essential medicines and medical supplies needed.
And as as my colleague also already said, and we've persistently said, there's a huge shortage in almost everything and coming to Gaza very regularly.
So everything related to trauma supplies is a short supply.
Something like an external fixator, always in short supply, but also very simple things, gloves, gowns, etcetera.
The everything relates to infection prevention and control is a huge issue.
Everything is a short supply.
So we need a constant flow and we've seen that we could do that when we had a, a, a, a, a ceasefire.
So we we of course, were all it was really great news on this ceasefire between Israel and Iran, we hope.
Get better news, there will be a ceasefire for Gaza and that access, access is possible through all routes in WHO, but also UN partners are very ready, very ready to, to increase and speed up as a plan.
We raised this constantly, etcetera.
And two other points I want to raise on Gaza because I think I, I forgot that it is, I think very important to to also raise fuel.
There's a huge lack of fuel in Gaza.
There is currently an, an an Eunos just trying to do a fantastic job in retrieving fuel within Gaza, but there's an absolute needs to get new fuel in from outside Gaza.
Without fuel, everything stops for us working with health hospitals etcetera and everything would be discussed, not just cold storage and vaccines etcetera, Icus, you name it, everything stop.
But fuel is critically important for water and water production etcetera, desalina, tion plants etcetera.
By mid June, 93% of the households face water insecurity, exacerbating thirst, public health risks.
Without water, infection prevention hospitals will become impossible, leading to spread of diseases, which we already see and may talk about malnutrition.
I want to say on average, one of the 12 children have been admitted daily for treatment of acute malnutrition since the start of the year.
If the situation is set to deteriorate, if conditions do not chase immediately, Luca, maybe you want to add something on this.
Thanks, No I I fully agree with what was said already by Doctor Rick Peppercorn.
The situation is absolutely stretched and extreme.
I would also want to shed the light on non communicable diseases.
It's important to remember that 84% of mortalities prior to war in Gaza was caused by exacerbation of non communicable diseases.
Although now of course trauma needs are increasing because of the intense warfare.
It's also important to remember that the risks for the population to become sick, but also to exacerbate their chronic conditions is more and more there.
It's very much important that also people have access to specialised care eventually even outside of the Gaza Strip through the medical evacuations corridor with more states who can taking charge patients and provide advanced medical care.
For example, I'm speaking about cancer care and definitely also to the needs related to primary and secondary health care to prevent further deteriorations of non of non communicable diseases.
Yeah, thank you very much.
First when it comes to when it comes to the the trucks, it was unclear to me what specifically has changed in I guess Israel's attitude or if when it comes to these trucks getting through and and also what you think needs to to happen today for for four other trucks to go through.
And then I had another question on if I was wondering if it would be possible to comment on the $30 million that the US now plans to inject into the GHF.
And what does that sort of say about at the same time as the US is, is removing support for other for other aid efforts at the same time as we're hearing that Israel again has seems to be blocking some aid over over Hamas alleged Hamas intervention.
So I was wondering if you could sort of say what that situation, what's going on with that?
And the same question also come from Associated Press on the on the chat, our correspondent Jimmy Keaton says can Doctor Pigotti give his reaction to US plan to inject 30 million into GHF, both in terms of the amount of money and the message it sends that GHF is getting more an official US support?
Sorry, I have to move this.
What is the effect of such GHF aid on the ground and how much does it help the health of people in Gaza?
So maybe this time look at you start and then we can complement.
And thanks a lot for the question.
I think that Doctor Peppercorn is in a better position to take this question.
So I will pass the floor to him.
Yeah, let me first clarify.
So the, the four trucks which we are collecting today, that was our decision to pick it up today because we're the last time there were we, we, we took nine trucks and one of the trucks was broken at Karen Shalom.
So we had to leave it there with an an considerable amount of palace for trucks.
So that was so there's nothing to do with delays by by Israel.
I think the, the I want to strike such actually that is in total if we're talking about 14 trucks including the the blood and, and, and and and plasma, et cetera.
When everything was ready after meticulously planned, we got, I would say proper facilitation also from Colgate and CLA, which we passed relatively quickly and we could do it the same day.
And we carried on and we took the nine trucks directly to the warehouse and the bloods and plasma to the hospital as I described.
And today we collect the other four trucks and I hope that we will have the same results.
So there was of course hope that that when this the a blockade was on for way too long.
And I think we've had many press conferences.
The UN has been very clear on this as well.
And so only recently a couple of weeks ago, the UN and parents were allowed to get some trucks in.
There's been way too limitous, way too limitous.
And, and and of course it went with a lot of problems and new routes had to be planned, etcetera.
I mean for us, I explained already to you the difficulties for us it's much easier to get to build our supply from Al Arish through Karen Shalom into Gaza than getting it from here or getting it now, flying it in from the Dubai hub etcetera, etcetera.
So other parties face the same problems.
But what we have seen is, is, is way too few and I don't like to talk about trucks that have way too few trucks coming into Gaza in all areas, specifically way into what foods and not non food items etcetera.
With regard to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, yeah, I don't want to say too much about it.
I think the Secretary General and and maybe maybe also a Christian want to say something about that.
But I think we UN has been very clear about this.
So and and and we've been discussing this as well over it has been discussed in many, many, many fora, etcetera.
So I don't want to yeah, I don't want to raise any more issues what I can say.
And that has been constantly erased.
The UN has a system in place.
The UN and its partners, the humanitarian partners has a system in place.
And it has proven that it works, not just during the ceasefire, even before it works.
So let it happen and open the routes and make sure that we can get our supplies in, not just for health, specifically for foods.
The market needs to be flooded with food and non food items and water etcetera, etcetera and including essential medicines in the most cost effective manner.
And that is what the UN, the UN is not a plan, a plan there.
It works, it has been working specifically when we are facilitated to do our job.
So let us do our job and, and, and yeah, we also see in the news the issues that we we again seem to have difficulties now getting a new truck thing that's really unfortunate and should not happen because you don't want to see those desperate people and specifically desperate young men risking their life to get some food here left or right.
And let me say also one thing on that, what our teams see, not only that some of those supplies end up at the market where they're being sold, but, and, and, and people cannot afford that, but specifically the ones who need it most.
Think about female headed households, thinks about handicapped people.
That's why you need to bring in those supplies to the, the, the many points which are all there in Gaza where they can distribute this to the people who need that.
And, and what we see as WHO we see the results of all this, the really nasty results, we read reports, etcetera.
These are what we see, our team sees in, in, in hospitals when they bring the prioritise and scarce supplies and a little bit of fuel, when they help with mass casualty management training, etcetera, when they assist the emerging medical teams, which are so much needed, What do they see?
Nearly 500 people have died in these mass casualty incidents over the over the last week, trying to get food, etcetera.
And, and we see what, what kind of, and then we see hundreds, hundreds of people being injured and it will affect themselves for life, horrible injuries, horrible injuries.
And, and, and, and we see the, of course, the bullets, everything related to, to gunfire, etcetera.
And, and this, this is what we see.
We see the result of all of that.
I saw in one article it was described as, as, as, as not my words.
One of those art was tried as killing fields.
We see the results of all of that and Luca and could be a little bit more specific, but from between 27th of May and 22nd of June, almost 500 people died trying to get food near size.
Yeah, cells distribution.
So this adds to enormous load at hospitals.
I mean, think about also all the people injured and all these horrific injuries to be treated.
So let me stop here and, and maybe Luca, I want to be a bit more specific on the type of injuries they they see in in in the hospitals which receive those injured.
Yeah, in case Luca, you want to say something because the follow up from AP was exactly on what you just said, which is what's the effect of such GHF aid on the ground on the elf side.
So I think you have answer to that.
I don't know if Luca wants to add something, otherwise I'll go to the next question.
Oh, Lin and Nina has a follow up.
Luca, I don't know why I can't see Luca on my plants.
No, Yes, Yeah, no, you're there.
Thank you very much for the question.
I confirm that we are almost reaching 500 that's following these 8 distributions.
This means more than five buses.
So again of people, which means that if it would have happened as an accident, a car accident, all the world would have speak about that.
But since it's happening on daily basis in Gaza, I think it's still very important to discuss about that and the amount of casualties and that's that these operations are causing in terms of injuries that we are seeing.
Gunshot definitely people get get shot, they are victim of blast injuries as well and burn injury for sure.
And with all the challenges that were described before, I think it's very also much important to understand that providing high quality medical care is very much difficult and hard, particularly because we are speaking about high volume of patients every time.
It was also on GHFI mean.
My understanding is some of the difficulty now or the the suspension of aid getting through that the GHF has potentially been exempted from that.
So they've been they're getting aid in while others are not given the the really dire situation around their aid distribution sites.
What do you think about that I guess unequal treatment?
Well, I think I've tried to to address this questions already on the on the GHA, I mean not have been set on the GHA, I think not by me, the Secretary General and all other levels and maybe Christian wants to add something to that.
So I think I'm, I'm not going back into this what is absolutely needed.
And, and, and I thought we saw a small opening that's let's say a number of the UN partners were recently allowed to get trucks in again.
And we have seen a small increase, but absolutely not enough.
There's a plan, there's a plan to get many more trucks in for food and for non food items.
So we, we hope, we, yeah, we always pray that this will be allowed to happen.
And, and, and every what I would say obstruction in between because this was happening, this was starting to happening in again a much too at a scale which was much too small what in relation to the needs, but it was starting to happen a little bit over the last week.
Well, this needs to expand what we get now also the news that again there is an, an, an, an, an, an obstruction.
We hope that that will be solved very soon.
What I think we all probably had hoped that that when the ceasefire was announced between Israel and and, and Iran, that it will be a spill over to Gaza.
The the attention would focus where it should be on Gaza, but also we would move into ceasefire, proper ceasefire there as well.
In the meantime, what what we have been raising constantly, not just for medical supplies, specifically food, fuel, water, everything related to wash and medical supplies needs to get a scale.
And again, the UN partners are completely ready to do that and have proven that they're very capable of that hope to you.
There was also I was looking a lot of declarations from Ocha on on this matter.
So sorry, I have more questions in the room.
Maybe just let me quickly add on that SO.
So sorry if I want to just ask.
So just to repeat exactly as Alessandra also indicated, the colleagues from OCHA, from UNICEF, from WFPI believe the Secretary General, everybody has been reiterating this over and over again.
People are dying in Gaza on a daily basis.
They have been killed on the way trying to get medical help.
They have been killed inside hospitals.
Now, additionally, they're being killed on the way to get food items which are scarcely being provided.
At the same time, we have food and medical help minutes away across the border, sitting there and waiting for weeks and months by now.
I think we've been saying it time over and over again, Taha.
Thank you for giving us this overview concerning the humanitarian aid.
Do you have the right to reach?
Do you have the right to reach those in need in all areas or there are specific areas assigned to you in Gaza?
We can reach all the areas, but it's important to remember that the population redistributed following the hostilities and following evacuation orders.
It's important to remember that more than 80% of the entire Gaza Strip at the moment is under order of civilian evacuation.
On the top of that, it's also important, as I mentioned before, that movements across the Gaza Strip are very much difficult because of security and safety constraints.
So definitely we have access to the entire Gaza Strip, but in a very unsafe manner and environment requiring high level of coordination in order to to move and mitigate as much as possible the risks related to our safety.
And also remember about the population that re displays basically constantly since the beginning of the of the escalation and and definitely now more concentrating in different areas rather than the beginning of the war.
Much sorry, maybe to add on this, what, what what Luca is rightly saying is that currently the population in Gaza is, is actually situated on 80 percent, 80% of the the overall Gaza Strip.
So can you mention more than 2 million people on 18% of what used to be the Gaza Strip?
It was already the most overpopulated sites in the, in the world.
So a lot of the other sides that Luca rightly said they are there, they're evacuation zones or whatever.
There's also a number of militarised zones, including where some of those distribution points are.
We cannot come to the, to those militarised zones.
And for every movement in Gaza, there's cumbersome process to, to, to, to make sure you get this, do this movement in an, in an, I would say in a less risky way.
And a lot of the movements there are delays or, and, or denied.
We've reported on that as well on, on many of the missions, etcetera.
So that is the, the situation we operate, operate in.
And then when it comes to, to the, to the, to the incidents, for example, and the mass casualty incidents.
So we are definitely on the receiving ends and, and and I can I mentioned another example which we saw recent I think in in Metcalf in was the Zecum in North Gaza related to crowd surge at a food distribution point.
Again, aid fatalities 185 injury.
Most of them were transferred to Shiva hospital.
Another was in nearly an history corridor in the South targeted civilians waiting for aid, 23 fatalities and over 14 injuries with patients were referred to multiple hospital in the central areas.
And this is how big was graphically described by Luca about the number of buses you know which you would have in an if it would be in car, in centre or bus concerns over to you.
Mohammed Aslan, the Turkish News Agency.
Thank you so much for this briefing.
My question will be about the West Bank, occupied West Bank.
As you mentioned, there is a increasing violence in the region recently and according to reports three people that and many more injured in the east of Ramallah region of West Bank.
My question is how is the latest station in Ramallah now?
And if you have, can you share the latest number in terms of death and injured people?
I must say I, I think I will have difficulty answering that whole question.
Yeah, I also read a report on the recent three people killed.
We will try to get more details on that and and, and if we have that, we will also put them in in the overview.
So let me go to the platform because there are more questions here.
So, Jamie, who has a problem with this mic, asks me to ask you, Rick, Doctor Peppercorn, Thanks.
You just said you hope that the ceasefire will also soon come to Gaza.
Do you have any evidence or communication with these radio authorities that might have that?
I wish I had and I think maybe the only thing what I what I would say that's, that's after this horrible lengthy 8 blockade, 12 weeks.
So we got some openings and, and, and that that's yeah, being allowed again as the UN and part is to get some of the supplies in.
And for us in health, we have a lot of discussions, negotiations about our supplies in the West Bank and initially it was not allowed etcetera and and we went back forth etcetera and, and, and finally it was allowed.
So that was my only kind of, I think you actually everybody lives by hope that you say, hey, so after what happens with Iran and Israel on the ceasefire, so OK, you know, are we opening up again a little bit, but unfortunately so we were we were we all hope for that.
No, I didn't get any indication and I will not be the first one informed from that.
But we still of course hope and would be by far the best what we see today that so a number of trucks where as I said, there were some movement on trucks being allowed both foods, non food items and health.
And what we see now again in the news that this is now again blocked for currently that's not good news.
We thought that we were on the road, that it would open up and there would be a plan to open up and to make sure that first of all, Gaza needs to be again.
Maybe you remember in, in, in February 2024, we were a little bit similar situation.
And then a lot of we have a similar situation.
Hardly any food was in, there was portraits of supplies all over, malnutrition was increasing all over the place, etcetera.
We were allowed to get supplies in again and that initially that was always the thing we you have to flood the markets to calm down the markets, to make sure prices go down.
You have to flood the markets to make sure that you can reach the most vulnerable groups, especially specifically female headed households, people who were challenged, handicapped people, etcetera, which we are absolutely not reaching now.
So yeah, we have that hope that this would would happen.
And again now we see again and and and and and and currents.
I hope it's a blip, an obstruction.
We hope, of course, that that we move forwards.
And and I think if I was not alone there, we all hoped after the ceasefire between Israel and Iran that the focus would be again where it should be on Gaza.
And, you know, we would work on the solution.
And the solution starts with a ceasefire.
Thank you very much, Rick.
Actually, Doctor in Gaza reports that a complete shortage of baby formula.
Do you have any figure in how many infants have died due to the lack of access of infant formula?
So we don't have any figures on that.
Luca might add maybe on some specifics on malnutrition, what they witness on the ground.
We definitely know there's a huge problem with different formula getting in and including for I think we had a this conference and I think already a month ago and we were raising as well.
I think when I was in Gaza, we raised the issue as well that also for WHO, The Who and you said are supporting some of those malnutrition treatment centres in a number of hospitals.
A number of them are not working anymore because that was for example in in the in the north, in, in, in, in the north of the hospital, which is non functional now anymore.
Come out one and and and then patient friendly and then Nasser etcetera.
Now, we already warned that everyone that WHO was running out of this so-called specialised nutrition supplies, which are needed for those to treat malnutrition, etcetera.
And UNICEF raised the same thing time and over again.
They've raised something very specifically and they struggle, of course, to get that infant formula and everything in as well.
Luca, maybe over to you, but I don't think we have any deed.
It's very difficult to link anything to the OK that causes a death or something like that.
I, I confirm actually it's important to remember that everything related to data on nutrition belongs to UNICEF as mandate.
So definitely they have better a better sense in terms of the overall burden on public health.
What I can tell you is definitely that I witness on daily basis in the communities and in hospitals scarcity of food, high level of food insecurity and surely also increasing admissions at secondary level for cases of severe acute malnutrition.
I remember James spoke about that in in a few occasions.
So maybe Iman, you can also ask him again if they have any new information.
You mentioned that there was obstruction getting EMTs into Gaza.
I wondered if you could just say how many teams are being blocked?
Is this on a significant scale and one of the reasons the teams are being denied entrance?
Are the applications for these teams to enter being turned down or teams being approved and then just not being allowed to cross?
Yeah, Luca will give the specifics on that.
But we've seen a trend and I think over the the last month that's specifically there's of course there's a whole system in place and always a cumbersome system for people getting into Gaza, including the ETS, emerging metal teams, NGOs, etcetera.
And there's always people denied and refused.
We also have had it ourselves.
I mean, it's not just affecting and it's also affecting the UN including ourselves WHO also have been affected is you never get a reason, an explanation for that.
So that is it's very frustrating.
But what we have seen over the the last couple of months that specifically health and emerging medical teams are more affected than let's say the other sectors.
And again, never with any explanation.
Luca, maybe you, I don't know if you have some figures of this over to you.
Thanks a lot for the question.
At the moment the problem is not really that they are denying entire teams so far.
Sorry, not so far at the moment.
Currently only one partner organisation is not allowed to enter as organisation, whereas the what we are experiencing is that the denials are targeting individuals.
This means that the teams that we try to facilitate the entrance are, let's say, not completed, right.
They they miss some key components sometimes.
So it's always also a great exercise of coordination to try to facilitate the deployments in order to make them as much effective as possible.
Also considering the fact that the teams are never completed in any case, in the last months starting from March up to June, we are experiencing 44% of denial rate, which means that if we try to enter 10 individuals from different teams, four to five of them are denied per rotation.
So I think it's really war zone.
And I just would like to refer to the figures, the latest figures we have from OCHA, they are from 2 days ago, not yesterday, the day before.
So they reported that 6 out of 17 attempts to coordinate monetary movements inside Gaza were outright rejected by the Israeli authorities.
This plan your missions included tracking water and repairing roads.
Nine other attempts, which included the removal of solid waste and collection of cargo from the crossings were facilitated by the Israeli authorities, while two additional attempts were impeded.
The continuing restrictions on humanitarian access is severely in the undermining life saving operations.
And I think I have Oh, no, there are no more hands up just before.
Yeah, no, there are no more hands up.
So thank you very, very much, Rick and Luca for for being with us today.
Both of you, stay safe, please and and continue updating us on your fundamentally important work.
Before we leave the issue of Gaza, I just wanted to call your attention on the fact that today at 5:30 PM Geneva time, so it's 11:30 in New York, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres will speak to the press at the Security Council's take out on the situation in the Middle East and Gaza and he will take questions.
And of course this is something that you can follow up, you can follow on the UN Web TV and immediately after at 6:00 PM Geneva time, 12:00 in, in New York.
So there won't be the non briefing, but the Under Secretary General for Peace Operations, Jean Pierre Lacroix will brief reporters on his recent travels to the Middle East.
And again, this is all available on UN Web TV.
So thanks again, Christian, Thanks for bringing us your colleagues.
I don't think you have any other announcement.
So that brings me to maybe give you a couple of other announcements, always staying on press conferences.
Also today busy day in New York for for reporters, the UN Deputy Secretary General Mina Mohammed will speak together with Rebecca Greenspan on the launch of the Secretary General step recommendation.
This is a head of the Financing for development conference in Sevilla.
And that would be, as I said, at six.
And of course and Mrs Greenspan will will join the SG Mohammed virtually today.
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women is reviewing the report of Botswana and the right, the Human Rights Committee is concluding this morning the review of Chad and the countries to come are Kazakhstan going to be South N Macedonia, Latvia, Spain, Haiti and Vietnam.
I just wanted also to remind you of an invitation that you should have received by now.
That's the next session of Cine Unu.
It's an exceptional edition under the stars.
We will invite we invite you to a free open air screening of Simmons close documentary film called Hacking Hate, which has awarded the best documentary award at the Rebecca Film Festival.
It it offers a gripping look at online hate speech and the challenges of regulating it.
So it should be of interest to all reporters here.
It's going to happen on Thursday, 3rd of July at the Domain de Pont.
So exceptionally not at the senior usual location in town, but impregnation busy at the Domain de Pont from 8:00 PM.
And we will be able to also have a discussion with human rights experts, UN human rights expert, Biggit Kinds.
And there will be snacks and drinks and activities such as self defence, which is useful.
So we would wait for you there in this beautiful setting.
I think that's all I had for you in terms of announcements.
I've seen in the in the chart a request and this is a request maybe Christian for you to share the notes of our colleagues in the West Bank and, and, and Gaza, in Jerusalem and Gaza.
As the journalists are saying, they are full of figures so it would be useful if you could share them quickly.
Any other question for me?
I wish you a very good weekend and we'll see each other next week.
And Christian says we'll have the notes in a moment.
Thanks, Thanks to everyone, have a nice weekend.
