 Hello. Good evening. Good afternoon. Sorry, not evening. Long day. I'm tired. To all of you here in the room, but also hello to all of you that are watching us online. I'm Mirek Rusek. I'm managing director at the World Economic Forum. This is the humanitarian briefing on Gaza. And I just wanted to make sure that you know that for us at the World Economic Forum, this issue is of utmost importance. I also wanted to be clear that, of course, as you all know, it's a very polarizing, there is a very polarizing atmosphere right now around this issue globally. I have been part of also the preparations for the annual meeting, so I just wanted to make sure you all know that this is something that we have put a lot of thought into. It is a very sensitive period right now, and this is not the only session that is going to be looking at Gaza and what is taking place. As you can imagine, there are a lot of political leaders that are here that are addressing that issue earlier today. We, for example, heard from the Qatari Prime Minister. We will have here the representative of President Abbas, Mr. Mohamed Mustafa. We will have many other Arab leaders here and foreign ministers addressing this issue. We'll have a lot of international leaders addressing this issue. Just this afternoon we will have Jake Sullivan here from the United States. We'll also have Anthony Blinken here, and we will also have the President of Israel here, Mr. Herzog, on Thursday who will also be providing his perspective on the war in Gaza. So I just wanted to be very upfront about it. It's a very, very polarizing issue right now. We felt it was very important that we have this discussion for us to be able to understand what is happening on the humanitarian front in Gaza right now. And I'm joined for this here by leaders that I have tremendous respect for. Jagan Shapagain, you are Secretary General of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Society. So a warm welcome to you. Kitty Fanderhagen, Deputy Executive Director at the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF. And Sam Erkhuri, Chief Executive Officer of the Consolidated Contractors Company. I've known you for a long time, a Palestinian business leader. We've worked a lot on many things. I know how committed also you are, of course, to your people, also how committed you are to peace and also how much you're doing right now. So we'll hear from you because I know you've been traveling to the border a lot there. So let me kick it off with you, Jagan, if I may. So your federation, as I said, it's a federation. So you are relying on the national societies, both Red Cross and the Red Crescent. More concretely, in Israel, you work with Maghenda with Adam. You work with the Palestine Red Crescent Society, but also you work with the national societies in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt. So let us understand what you are hearing and seeing from those different actors that I just mentioned that we can get a picture of the situation on the ground. Of course, we're really all concerned about the situation of civilians in this war. Thank you. And thank you for having me. You rightly said we are the federation, so we actually work with the national structures, Red Cross and Red Crescent are in Israel, Maghenda and Adam. And the number of countries you mentioned, these are all very, very important. And each of the Red Cross Red Crescent societies are doing the humanitarian work in their own countries. In Israel, when this painful death happened on 7th of October, the Maghenda with Adam was pushed on the scene to provide ambulance services and taking them to the medical facilities and also now continuously providing the mental health support, and particularly to those families whose family members are in captivity. And this continues. But of course in Palestine, the Palestine Red Crescent has been a very active organization for many, many years, but primarily focusing on the health services. And right now, because of these supplies and constraints, the primary supply is coming from Egypt. And the Egyptian Red Crescent is mandated by the authorities to be one of the primary organizations with the supplies into Gaza, and it gets handed over to Palestine Red Crescent. And then Palestine Red Crescent works with many organizations, including the UN organizations, to make sure that the goods get distributed. And then of course the countries of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan becomes very important because we hope that the conflict doesn't become a regional conflict. But if it becomes, God forbid it doesn't, but if it does, of course it's very important that we have preparedness in other countries also. I myself, I haven't been to inside Gaza. I did go up to Rafa border in very early days of this phase of conflict. Primarily from the UN point of view, what we are seeing is the health care crisis, basically the health facilities. A majority of them are not working, even the ones who are working first in a power supply, water supply, medical supply. Also the doctors and nurses have been overworking 24-7 in the early days. So the health care system is absolutely in a very, very difficult, difficult shape. And the Palestine Red Crescent doing those works for a very long period of time, like the Al-Quds hospital, it stopped functioning because of the lack of the power and the medical supplies. The water and food have been the other areas of major, major, major constraint. I think the food, I think you heard a number of reports also saying that, you know, some reports of saying that starvation could be coming. And the water is a major thing, and I'm sure Kitty will talk about more in detail later. The clean drinking water is a major, major, major issue. Sanitation becomes a major, major crisis. Of course this could create a secondary impact. So I think these are sort of very briefly the humanitarian situation we are hearing. The food, water, health, fuel, shelter, the education has basically stopped. So these are major crises. But also working on the ground, some of the challenges faced by the staff and volunteers has been of course a major mental health challenge on themselves because a lot of them also have lost their families. The access is an issue, and of course the safety is also an issue. A number of staff and volunteers have been killed by now. So major humanitarian gaps inside Gaza, but also the safety and access for the workers remains a major challenge. Can I also ask you, because you read about the border, so for people to be able to understand if you have some reading on the situation, particularly with Rafa, how does it actually work right now? So basically I witnessed that myself, of course that was in the early days. So mostly what happens is the goods coming from Egypt, as you know the northern Sinai, Al-Aris, that's where the goods get collected, that's where the warehouses are, and that's where the trucks get loaded into. And once the trucks get loaded, they have to go through a scanner in the Egyptian side just to make sure that the Egyptian authorities are compatible with what are crushing the border. And then they go to Rafa border, and from there they had to drive around 60 kilometers to go to the scanner managed by the Israeli authorities. So they have to pass through the Israeli scanner and drive 60 kilometers back. So basically 120 kilometers they drive just to get the security clearance through the scanner. And if the truck is rejected, it means that then they have to go back to Al-Aris, offload and unload again. So once they come from the scanners, then they cross from the Rafa border inside Gaza, and there they have to offload the goods coming from Egyptian trucks into the Palestinian trucks. And then they get distributed, working with all the other organizations working together. It gets distributed. And there are a lot of challenges. Of course there had been restrictions on the number of trucks that can enter, but also even if more trucks enter, the challenges is with the fuel in Gaza side in the early days it was a major, major challenge. It still remains a challenge. But also then getting the trucks and the drivers to get to the areas where it is needed the most, particularly in the northern Gaza, becomes very, very difficult. Thank you. And finally, if I could just because you, as I said at the beginning, you work with all those national societies. So after the attack on October 7th, and also help us understand what Maghen David Adam was doing within Israeli society, because that's part of your federation as well. Primarily their support was basically getting the injured to the hospital, because they have been very strong on the emergency medical services. So that's sort of their, initially that's sort of the major support they provided in the early days. And then increasingly of course providing support to the families. And of course there is also, you know, there are missiles coming still into Gaza, both from southern Lebanon and also from Gaza. So if they sort of hit the any habitat areas, and if anybody is injured or if they need support in Israel, they do that. Okay. Thank you so much for this 360 of what your organization is doing right now. If I could move to UNICEF. So obviously you're known by the work that you're doing for children. And obviously children are immensely affected by the war, and there is a lot of suffering. So how do you see the situation on the ground from your colleagues that you have there? If you can also just describe to us the situation as you see it. Look, if there's one word that would describe the situation of children in Gaza, it's catastrophic. Rewind. Catastrophic. That's just what it is. You know, there is no one and nowhere that is safe to be as a child in Gaza at this moment. Children and civilians face the 3D. Death from the sky. Disease from the lack of safe water, as Jagann was highlighting. And deprivation because of the sheer lack of food. Now let me elaborate on all three of them. One on the death. Let's not forget that we are 100 days into a terrible conflict which started with horrific atrocious acts in Israel. But we now have well over 23,000, close to 24,000 people reportedly killed and reportedly about 59,000 people injured, maimed, and God knows how many are still under the rubble. 70% of those are women and children. That's what comes from the sky. In terms of drinking water, people in Gaza at the moment have one and a half to two litres of water each day for everything. For cooking, for drinking water, for hygiene, everything. The minimum standard in emergencies worldwide is 15 litres. The critical threshold for survival is three litres. That is what we're talking about, catastrophic. And then coming to the food situation. As Jagann was mentioning, this is nothing short of catastrophic. And we have never seen the levels of deprivation. Let me reiterate that. We have not seen the levels of deprivation we are seeing now. We have 100% of the population in Gaza that is categorized in IPC-3 food insecurity. And that's crisis. 50% of the population in IPC category 4 and no less than 25% to 1 in 4 in IPC category 5. That means catastrophic levels of food insecurity. And all of this happened in the time span of three months. So this is not just the depth and the severity of the crisis that's affecting children. It is also the speed within which this has happened. We need urgent collective action to really address the situation for children on the ground. As we have said before in UNICEF, Gaza is a graveyard for children. And we cannot allow that to continue. So if you want, I'm happy to talk about a few of the things that are needed. Please. So we call it the four R, just to keep it very brief. One, we need the R for reach. As humanitarian actors, all of us together, we need to reach people in need. Children, civilians, women. For that, we need two things. We need access. We need not two border crossings. We need more border crossings, including in the North where, reportedly, we don't know about 300,000 people are that have hardly seen any humanitarian assistance. We need, in addition to that, for reach an immediate humanitarian safe, a ceasefire. We cannot move from A to B if bombs are falling. And people cannot come to distribution sites. So access means border crossings and a humanitarian ceasefire. Secondly, we need respect for international humanitarian law. We have not lost as many UN staff as we have ever in the history of the UN as now, 152. And I know, Jigand, you have also suffered tremendous losses. Our condolences to you as well. But we also know that 73% of schools are damaged. 70% of primary health care is damaged, according to WHO. 50% of municipal wash facilities. So we really need to talk about war is not our thing. We care about children. Every child is the same. But we need basic facilities so we can enable basic services to be delivered for children. So that's the reach. It's the respect. We need resources, all of us, all humanitarian actors. We're critically underfunded to deliver what is needed. And last and not least, let's not forget, there are still children abducted. As far as we know, at least two, one of them, a small child that was abducted when he was nine months old, will turn one year tomorrow. These children need to be released safely, unconditionally and immediately back to their families in Israel. It can be done, but critically, it's not happening at the moment. Thank you. And also, of course, you said it also in, of course, the October 7 attack, a lot of children perished as well. So overall, this just confirms how we need to work to work piece long term, which brings me to you, Samar, because as you know, the World Economic Forum has been always committed to providing a platform to when there is a different situation and hopefully at one point the guns will fall silent that the region can move to a sustainable peaceful solution, just to say that. But we are where we are. So I mentioned at the beginning that you are now very active on the humanitarian front. So if you can tell us a little bit about what you're doing. I know you also have some proposals. Basically, I think we have to realize that we cannot depend only on the international community and humanitarian aid. We, as a Palestinian private sector, trying to help as much as we can. But using this audience and your good offices, I have four specific requests which I think will help the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Number one, hospitals. As we all know, there were 45 hospitals, maybe now less than eight are in operation, specifically the ones in the north. So a specific suggestion, I live in Greece. Many volunteers from Greece as doctors are willing to go there and I'm sure other countries will volunteer if there is an arrangement made between Europeans and Israel. Let the European doctors, nurses and more important medicines to go. So that's one specific, choose a hospital in the north, a hospital in the south, let the European run it. This way Israel doesn't say it's a military operation. Number two, water. There is three main pipelines that deliver water to Gaza. Today one only is operation in the south. Let us make a task force between UN, Israelis and Palestinians and we'll fix the pipeline because you said there's a problem of water. If you let the water pipelines work and get diesel in because there is existing already purification plants, immediately you solve the water problem. Number three, power. Before this war, Gaza used three sources of power. Israel, Gaza power plant and from Egypt. Now let's start with Egypt. Allow Egypt because overhead lines are still not bombed. We can tomorrow make a task force between Egypt, Israel and UN and let power go in and that would go a long way. Finally, I have to say it unfortunately that now we are after so many years of a Nakbe we're back to tents. But today 700,000 people are living with nothing on their head. So one of my main tasks and I ask everyone to volunteer tents, normal tents because half of these 800 people are kids. So if we can all at least make a task force with your good offices and retire to work on these practical suggestions. Thank you so much. We have about seven minutes left for this briefing. I'd like to now open it up to any questions people may have in the room here if you can introduce yourself and if you can always say who the question is for. Thank you. So I see the lady there and then Sarah. I think first the lady on the left over there and then Sarah. Hello. Thank you very much. My name is Razia Alcoge. I work for Agence France-Presse. I'm normally based in Brussels. I had questions for Mr Chabakan as someone with a name that's Turkish. I hope you, I understand as well. And for Miss Vanda Hayden. We've heard from some other organizations that there is no safe place to give birth and because you both sort of alluded to the experience of the healthcare issues, I kind of wanted to go into that issue more of how women who have small children, women who are pregnant, just generally what the experiences of women in Gaza are and how you would describe the conditions in Gaza for women at the moment. Thank you very much. Thank you if you want to. Look, I think we're all very lucky as women in this room that we're here and not there. We have 155,000 pregnant and lactating women in Gaza. We know that on average, on an average day, we have about 135 deliveries and we also know that about 25% of those need life-saving medical care, whether it be C-sections or other. The critical care is not there. So women are suffering. Children as a result are also suffering. And if you're a woman and, you know, there is one toilet in 700 people. There is one shower in, I can't remember, I think it was 7,000 people. Just imagine if you're a menstruating woman or a lactating woman or you are a young girl that's menstruating for the first time and just imagine the sanitary conditions you are under. That is what life is like at the moment in very crowded, unsanitary conditions in the south and that leads to a high disease burden. And pregnant women are obviously very vulnerable and we cannot offer them the care that is required. So from a gender perspective, this is not a neutral crisis. Women suffer and particularly pregnant women suffer. So I would love to get medical caring, nutritious food in because nutrition, lack of adequate nutrition for pregnant and lactating women is a serious health problem and we need safe conditions for deliveries. And that requires hygiene which we don't have. Go down. No, I think that through the covers. Okay, great. Sarah, please. Thank you very much. I'm Sarah Pantoniano from ODI. Thanks to all of you for making very clear what the situation on the ground is and Kiti particularly to you for the moral clarity in describing the situation of children. There is one thing when it comes to why we see less political action that we would like to see in addressing humanitarian crisis that is the way in which the crisis is discussed in the media. At ODI we've called it the politics of narrative. When we hear children in Gaza talked about, we hear under 18 or people who die or under 18 who die, there is a real difficulty in actually saying that children are being killed. How can we make sure that our advocacy breaks through this challenge in the media that is making the narrative quite distorted? Who is it for? Whoever wants to address it. Of course UNICEF in particular has an advocacy voice, but all of you. No, it's a very hard one, Sarah. I ideally don't have a prescription. I think when you look at how some of the crisis gets reported, of course there is mainstream media where I think at least there is a degree of editorial processes. But at the moment the news doesn't get circulated by the mainstream media. It gets circulated through the social media among friends from a very informal channel. That makes the development of a narrative extremely, extremely difficult. What we are also seeing now increasingly is the social media sort of sets the narrative. Increasingly also the political decision makers also gets heavily influenced by how the social media sets the narrative. And that's what makes the dealing with the crisis in today's age much, much, much harder, including for humanitarian work. Because a lot of times, of course, our mandate and our capacity is to try to bring the humanitarian assistance and reduce the human suffering. But because of some of these debates, even these things become increasingly complex. And honestly I wish I had a straightforward answer to this question, Shara. But this is clearly an issue that needs to be worth discussing. And that's one of the reasons I love the topic of this forum where you focus on rebuilding the trust. I think that's sort of the critical element that's missing in the world, and it's sort of getting less and less violent. So I really wanted to thank you for choosing that topic. Thank you. Anyone else wants to react to it? I think it was the lady there. Can you... Microphone, please. My name is Fatma Wahidi. I own a children's center in Colorado. My question is for you, Mr. Dusik. It's that we're here in Davos 2024, annual meeting. And honestly, there is one session. You said this was the biggest humanitarian crisis we've ever seen in lifetimes, bigger than World War II. And yet if you look through the agenda and you see the people talking, there are bigger sessions for Ukraine, which we already discussed it, which is still a crisis, but the amount that the people of Gaza and the Palestinians are being focused on, I'm sorry you said in the beginning that we have so many sessions, that is not true. I mean, we all have the agenda and we can see. It's just some of the leaders may or may not mention it, but it's not a focus of the World Economic Forum when this is something that is huge. And these children that are suffering, these children that are suffering today are going to be the children in 15 years that may cause suffering, the same suffering that we're seeing now, because of all of what they're seeing and what they're going through. And I don't think that the World Economic Forum or any of the international companies are taking any of this seriously. And to me, it's not about today, it's about my children, my three children that I worry about what's going to happen because of all the crisis that these children and these people are suffering and seeing. So what is happening at World Economic Forum? What is on the agenda also other than this forum? No, thank you so much. Like you, we take it extremely seriously. And thank you for the comment. Now, what I mentioned at the beginning is what we are implementing here. So for example, if I look at the session this morning with the Qatari Prime Minister, most of the proceedings, now you can say, okay, it's a discussion, but we provide a platform for dialogue. Of course, there is others that then can catalyze action. That's why we have a lot of leaders from different stakeholder groups here. But really the leaders that I mentioned at the beginning are appearing here. Also just to be very clear, we have invited President Abbas. We have, and as you know, Samar, I have personally worked with many Palestinians and Israelis for the past 16 years. So I know the region, I would say quite well for someone who doesn't live there. So if I look at, and so as I said, President Abbas nominated Mohamed Mustafa to be the representative, and he has a dedicated session that will be advertised in the program. We have also the Jordanian Prime Minister here who I would expect would be also addressing this. We have many foreign ministers coming. Now it is not enough. That's why we felt we needed to also be able to provide this platform for people that are working on the ground in Gaza. And I know many of you, I mean you first hand, and you have colleagues that are there and you have visited. So I first of all fully agree with you how serious this is. It is very important to us also because not only me personally, but also this organization has been quite active on this. You may remember we had here Chairman Arafat at one point. And it is, as I said at the beginning, it is not, and I fully agree that this is hugely, at a human level, hugely difficult. Now I will say it again. We will have here Arab leaders. We have here the Israeli president who will talk on Thursday about, among other things, will address, for example, the situation of the hostages and will be of course pleading also for their release. Now it is really a political process right now. For example, the Qatari Prime Minister was here on the record saying that they are, of course, trying to mediate as they do in terms of what will be given, let's say what is on the side of hostages with regard to the secession of hostilities. It is a very raw moment. I just wanted to assure you that for us this is extremely important. That's why we're sitting here, this is not the only thing we're doing. And I'm very happy also that we have a lot of stakeholders among the Palestinians, among the Israelis that have been engaged with us, and we hope that our role is not really military, our role is not security. This is a tragic moment, and we hope that at one point we again can play a more productive role. So this is just in reaction to you, and again, thank you for the comment. I think we're out of time, so I think I have one more. So there is the lady you've been. Yes, please. Thank you. Then we'll close the session. Thank you. Hi, my name is Lynn. I'm here representing the Global Shaper Community. And I wanted to pick on something you've mentioned. Ms. Van Der Heiden, thank you so much for your comment, and Sarah mentioned your moral clarity as well. We have initiatives where we're partnering with organizations like Anira that you may all be familiar with that is working on the ground in Kazanow, one of our shapers actually is at the rough of crossing and helping with delivering aid. We also have shapers in Palestine, including in Gaza, that every few days tell us that they're still alive. I wanted to pick up on something, Ms. Van Der Heiden, that you mentioned, the need for humanitarian ceasefire. It seems that that's something that Anira has been pushing as well, saying that in order for us to really deliver aid, that humanitarian ceasefire is really critical, because not only to provide support for the community, but also to the aid workers who are supporting. And I wanted to ask for your thoughts, especially from your advocacy point of view, how can we collectively help push for the ability for that humanitarian ceasefire so that you're able to do the work that you need to do in the community, and so that the community itself stays safe. Thank you. Thank you. Look, I think that we have been clear and outspoken as I would say the humanitarian sector writ large, but also I think across, you know, almost across the political spectrum that we need humanitarian ceasefire, that the violence cannot continue, that people are suffering, really suffering, and that there needs to be a political solution. So I think at this moment, what we can do is use, for example, opportunities like these created by the World Economic Forum, created elsewhere to keep asking and advocating that we cannot allow the human suffering we see at the moment to continue. And for us as a humanitarian community to alleviate the plight of people, children do not start wars, but children are suffering the consequences that we advocate for that humanitarian ceasefire because we cannot deliver like this. And it's not just the people that are there. It's also, you know, the people that Jagann has lost, that we have lost. I have staff in Gaza and I'm incredibly proud. Let me just say that here. I'm incredibly proud of our people on the ground, writ large across the humanitarian spectrum that stay and deliver. We have colleagues that have lost their wives for children. They managed to get one person, one of their sons, out of the rubble and they're still there because they believe that we have to deliver for children that have nothing to do with this conflict. And I hope that everyone can look into their heart and think as a parent rather than a politician and then finally we can maybe get to a humanitarian ceasefire. Thank you so much for spending the time. Thank you so much also for participating and wishing you productive week here. Thank you. Thank you very much.