Tim Sebastian: After Israel admitted killing seven foreign aid workers in Gaza,
Tim Sebastian: there have been hopes that the humanitarian situation might ease
Tim Sebastian: and that desperately needed food can begin to reach
Tim Sebastian: the hundreds of thousands at risk of famine.
Tim Sebastian: But how realistic are those hopes?
Tim Sebastian: My guest is Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council,
Tim Sebastian: with decades of experience in the humanitarian field.
Tim Sebastian: He’s also a former diplomat who was closely involved with the
Tim Sebastian: Oslo peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians in the 1990s.
Tim Sebastian: How does he think this savage war can end?
Jan Egeland: In six months the war must be over.
Jan Egeland: I hope it's over in one week, really, and that we're spared the bloodbath of Rafah.
Tim Sebastian: Egeland says the pulverizing of Gaza now ranks among the worst assaults
Tim Sebastian: on any civilian population in our time and age.
Tim Sebastian: Why was there no power on earth that could stop it before
Tim Sebastian: so many were killed?
Tim Sebastian: Jan Egeland, welcome to Conflict Zone.
Tim Sebastian: Thank you very much.
Tim Sebastian: After the killing of seven aid workers
Tim Sebastian: in Gaza by Israeli troops, there's been new hope that
Tim Sebastian: the aid situation might improve on the ground to some meaningful degree.
Tim Sebastian: Do you think that hope is justified?
Jan Egeland: Yeah, the hope is justified.
Jan Egeland: We desperately need it.
Jan Egeland: We haven't seen much proof of it.
Jan Egeland: Perhaps a little bit more trucks coming over the Kerem Shalom
Jan Egeland: border crossing in the south.
Jan Egeland: I haven't seen trucks coming through the northern border crossings yet,
Jan Egeland: and there's still a lot of restrictions on
Jan Egeland: internal movement inside Gaza, that Israel controls completely now,
Jan Egeland: except for Rafah in the south, with their military troops.
Tim Sebastian: You mentioned Rafah.
Tim Sebastian: If the onslaught, if the advance, the Israeli advance
Tim Sebastian: goes ahead in Rafah, what would the situation be there then?
Jan Egeland: I mean, it would be horrific beyond belief.
Jan Egeland: I was there myself, five or six weeks ago.
Jan Egeland: It's a place like nowhere else in the world.
Jan Egeland: It's in effect the largest refugee camp on Earth.
Jan Egeland: 1.4 million people crammed together in an area, which is like
Jan Egeland: one seventh of the municipality of Oslo, where I live.
Jan Egeland: These people have fled two, three, four, five times.
Jan Egeland: Most of them.
Jan Egeland: They have nowhere else to go, because they cannot flee into Israel
Jan Egeland: from where their ancestors came, nor can they go into Egypt.
Jan Egeland: So they're trapped there.
Jan Egeland: Could they go north?
Jan Egeland: Perhaps they could flee north.
Jan Egeland: What would meet them?
Jan Egeland: There would be a heap of ruins.
Jan Egeland: It's a horrific thing.
Jan Egeland: It would be a bloodbath to go into Rafah.
Jan Egeland: That's why we're fighting this very idea.
Jan Egeland: It's an affront to humanity to have a war in a refugee camp.
Tim Sebastian: But even without Rafah,
Tim Sebastian: the statistics are pretty horrendous, aren't they?
Those from the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs,
released on April 6th: 1.1 million people in
Gaza experiencing "catastrophic food insecurity. "
Tim Sebastian: There are no quick fixes to that, are there?
Jan Egeland: No very quick ones, except that — listen, there are
Jan Egeland: hundreds, thousands of trucks that could go across
Jan Egeland: the border crossings in the north, to the famine-stricken
Jan Egeland: north, tomorrow.
Jan Egeland: I mean that if the tanks can easily go in and out from Israel,
Jan Egeland: why couldn't aid trucks go in and out.
Jan Egeland: This is a man-made famine from A to Z. It's not the
Jan Egeland: drought of Somalia and elsewhere.
Jan Egeland: This is a famine made by a war and made by a blockade that
Jan Egeland: Israel has imposed on the innocent Gazans that did not,
Jan Egeland: to the large, to 99%, not participate
Jan Egeland: in the horrors of the 7th of October.
Tim Sebastian: Britain's Foreign Secretary David Cameron said
Tim Sebastian: last week: What we were told was previously impossible,
Tim Sebastian: he meant by the Israelis, suddenly became possible.
Tim Sebastian: Ashdod port and the area's crossing will soon reopen.
Tim Sebastian: Water will be turned back on.
Tim Sebastian: More aid will flow through Kerem Shalom.
Tim Sebastian: Um, is he right?
Tim Sebastian: Do you see movement that would tell you
Tim Sebastian: that this is now happening, that there's been a change of heart
Tim Sebastian: on the Israeli side?
Jan Egeland: Well, I think finally the United States, Britain,
Jan Egeland: even Germany to some extent is exerting the pressure on the
Jan Egeland: Israeli war machine to behave according to the laws of war that we
Jan Egeland: didn't see in the first five months at all.
Jan Egeland: We're seeing some of that now.
Jan Egeland: And then comes the promises that the port,
Jan Egeland: Ashdod, would open, the border crossings would open.
Jan Egeland: They haven't so far.
Jan Egeland: There has been more trucks coming over Kerem Shalom
Jan Egeland: in the very south, yes.
Jan Egeland: But it's still very hard to get enough trucks going
Jan Egeland: north to that horrific situation where hundreds or thousands of people
Jan Egeland: are, in effect, in famine.
Jan Egeland: So, what I hope is that those who provide the tools for this,
Jan Egeland: the arms for this, the bombs for this indiscriminate
Jan Egeland: assault on Gaza —and they are the United States, Germany,
Jan Egeland: and to a lesser extent, the U.K. and other Western countries —
Jan Egeland: they need to really exert some real pressure and also stop
Jan Egeland: providing arms to something which is undoubtedly indiscriminate.
Jan Egeland: We proved that from the first week,
Jan Egeland: in the response from Israel after the horrific
Jan Egeland: attacks on the 7th of October.
Tim Sebastian: You seem to be saying that the Western countries,
Tim Sebastian: which are on the one hand supplying arms and on the other hand calling
Tim Sebastian: for an end to the fighting, or at least
Tim Sebastian: a humanitarian pause, are hypocritical.
Tim Sebastian: Is that your view?
Jan Egeland: Yeah, they are, they are seen as hypocritical by the world.
Jan Egeland: But that's more than anything that the occupation and
Jan Egeland: the pummelling of apartment houses and the turning off electricity and
Jan Egeland: and water is very bad in Ukraine, as we all agree.
Jan Egeland: But it's somehow tolerable when Israel is doing the same.
Jan Egeland: That's what the world sees as industrial-scale hypocrisy.
Jan Egeland: What I would say is that they have been...
Jan Egeland: astoundingly impotent in that diplomacy vis-a-vis Israel.
Jan Egeland: They must have seen, because we provided the evidence for that,
Jan Egeland: that the assault was indiscriminate from October 12th, last year.
Jan Egeland: They know that we were never allowed access to Gaza
Jan Egeland: as we should as humanitarians.
Jan Egeland: I warned them myself in letters to the US administration and to the EU
Jan Egeland: in mid-October, that if they allowed Israel, which is a belligerent here,
Jan Egeland: to control the border crossings completely with their military staff,
Jan Egeland: it would never work in terms of humanitarian access.
Jan Egeland: So they knew all of this and they did very little,
Jan Egeland: but they continued to provide arms for all of this.
Tim Sebastian: What was their response when you gave them this warning?
Jan Egeland: To some extent, we didn't even get an answer.
Jan Egeland: But when we got answers, they said: Well, we take it for granted that
Jan Egeland: Israel is following the rules of war, humanitarian law of
Jan Egeland: armed conflict, we are urging them to provide humanitarian access,
Jan Egeland: we will tell them again to provide humanitarian access,
Jan Egeland: we are telling them to shield the civilian population.
Jan Egeland: And then we told them, but you must see yourself.
Jan Egeland: They're not listening.
Jan Egeland: And I've said several times, to me it's like putting your fingerprints
Jan Egeland: all over a crime scene if you provide two thousand-pound bombs
Jan Egeland: to a place where one apartment house, civilian,
Jan Egeland: full of families, is pummeled after the other.
Jan Egeland: How would you not have complicity in what's happening?
Tim Sebastian: How do you explain this diplomatic impotence,
Tim Sebastian: as you call it, from the Western nations?
Jan Egeland: Yeah, I mean,
Jan Egeland: I still have problems in understanding it because,
Jan Egeland: I think it was a strategic mistake of enormous
Jan Egeland: proportions in the beginning, that they didn't understand and learn
Jan Egeland: from 911 in the United States, where the whole world
Jan Egeland: went from having all sympathy with the United States, everybody,
Jan Egeland: and then little by little, people saw that there was waterboarding and
Jan Egeland: black sites and the US lost its moral high ground and it became
Jan Egeland: some kind of mud-wrestling match with these horrific organizations.
Jan Egeland: The same thing they must have foreseen,
Jan Egeland: when they went to Israel and said what we all felt,
Jan Egeland: that it was a gruesome Hamas attack on th
Jan Egeland: the Israeli civilian population.
Jan Egeland: And I have condemned those who say no,
Jan Egeland: this was an uprising against occupation.
Jan Egeland: This was legitimate because of what all that Israel has done.
Jan Egeland: It was not.
Jan Egeland: It was killing women, children, concertgoers, farmers and kibbutzim.
Jan Egeland: It was horrific and condemnable.
Jan Egeland: But then to go there and say
Jan Egeland: 'we're behind whatever you do', that was basically the message,
Jan Egeland: then the assault came and then it's very hard to say, oh, stop!
Jan Egeland: What?
Jan Egeland: We let you start.
Tim Sebastian: As the war has gone on, many countries have continued to
Tim Sebastian: repeat the mantra that Israel has every right to defend itself because
Tim Sebastian: it suffered horrendous casualties on October the 7th.
Tim Sebastian: When you look at the statistics of this conflict,
Tim Sebastian: particularly those relating to Palestinian children,
Tim Sebastian: nearly 26,000 killed or injured so far, according to
Tim Sebastian: Save the Children, is that, in your view "defense"?
Can it be described as "defense"?
Jan Egeland: No, no.
Jan Egeland: It's far beyond legitimate self-defense.
Jan Egeland: And of course, Israel has a right to self-defense.
Jan Egeland: That's what all those Western leaders providing the arms say:
Jan Egeland: it's legitimate self-defense.
Jan Egeland: And what the US even said from relatively early on was,
Jan Egeland: it would have been targeted operations against the Hamas fighters.
Jan Egeland: What they decided to do was — and they made it clear,
Jan Egeland: the Netanyahu government, the most extreme in the history of Israel,
Jan Egeland: by the way, with ministers who have said things
Jan Egeland: that are condemnable, really.
Jan Egeland: They said, we will make basically Gaza unlivable.
Jan Egeland: We will change Gaza completely.
Jan Egeland: We will not let in food.
Jan Egeland: We will not let in electricity.
Jan Egeland: We will not let in water.
Jan Egeland: That what they said early on, many ministers.
Jan Egeland: So how could it become a surprise, when they saw what happened.
Tim Sebastian: You've seen plenty of conflict over the years,
Tim Sebastian: but you wrote in February: "To stand in the ruins of Gaza is to
Tim Sebastian: be overwhelmed by the abject failure of the international community.
Tim Sebastian: For four decades, my work has taken me to many war zones,
Tim Sebastian: but I've never been confronted by anything like this."
Tim Sebastian: What was the 'this' that confronted you and left such an
Tim Sebastian: abiding impression on you?
Jan Egeland: I'm glad you're putting that question because, there are some
Jan Egeland: very unique features around Gaza, and then there are some that are
Jan Egeland: not that unique.
Jan Egeland: I've also been of late to the Chad-Sudan border,
Jan Egeland: and met the tens of thousands of people who have fled
Jan Egeland: the abject horrors of Darfur in Sudan.
Jan Egeland: Massive sexual violence, massive amounts of massacres,
Jan Egeland: and no aid to speak of and poverty beyond belief.
Jan Egeland: And many more people live that kind of a reality in the Sudan
Jan Egeland: now than in Gaza.
Jan Egeland: So what's unique about Gaza is, number one, there is no escape.
Jan Egeland: There's no Chad or Poland or Lebanon for the Palestinians.
Jan Egeland: They are trapped inside a densely populated area.
Jan Egeland: And that's the other one.
Jan Egeland: I mean, this is densely populated without escape.
Jan Egeland: Thirdly, it's a more intense bombardment in this
Jan Egeland: small place than in any other place in recent memory.
Jan Egeland: And then the lack of adequate access for humanitarians
Jan Egeland: to assist them, not because of lack of resources,
Jan Egeland: because the border crossings are controlled with a belligerent
Jan Egeland: that is not allowing it to go in.
Jan Egeland: And then finally, what is unique is that, our generous
Jan Egeland: donors that help us in Ukraine and in Sudan and in so many other places,
Jan Egeland: the Western countries are actually playing a very negative role here,
Jan Egeland: because they have provided the tools for the attack.
Jan Egeland: So we are at odds with the governments that we are
Jan Egeland: usually aligned with.
Tim Sebastian: But even without that being aligned with Israeli policy,
Tim Sebastian: even without that, you say they could have done
Tim Sebastian: much more when it comes to delivering aid to Gaza.
Tim Sebastian: You said: "I would say to the countries like the UK and US,
Tim Sebastian: why haven't they organized their own convoys into Gaza?
Tim Sebastian: They can under international law.
Tim Sebastian: How come Israel is allowed to control all going in even at the
Tim Sebastian: Egyptian Gaza border?
Tim Sebastian: International law says you have to enable enforced relief to people
Tim Sebastian: who are starving.
Tim Sebastian: If there is a belligerent who's denying it."
Tim Sebastian: They could have simply turned up at the border with their aid?
Tim Sebastian: And they could oblige the Israelis to let them in?
Jan Egeland: Or gone across the Egyptian border,
Jan Egeland: in cooperation with Egypt and said: Hey, Israel, are you going
Jan Egeland: to bomb this US-UK-German convoy that is going
Jan Egeland: with food and other humanitarian relief that we,
Jan Egeland: friends of Israel, have monitored ourselves?
Jan Egeland: Of course they wouldn't have done that.
Jan Egeland: So, I give you another example, Tim.
Jan Egeland: In Syria there is an area controlled by armed opposition groups.
Jan Egeland: Some of them of the kind of a character perhaps
Jan Egeland: that would be like Hamas, Islamic groups.
Jan Egeland: One of them pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda some years back.
Jan Egeland: To that area, the convoys go over from Turkey.
Jan Egeland: And there is a UN security resolution enabling that.
Jan Egeland: And it's monitored by UN monitors and the aid flows very well.
Jan Egeland: And it's not like they are asking Assad,
Jan Egeland: the Syrian government in Damascus, for permission.
Jan Egeland: There are a lot of precedents.
Jan Egeland: They could have done this according to international law and they didn't.
Tim Sebastian: And when you ask them about this, what was the response?
Jan Egeland: That, you know, we have to cooperate with Israel,
Jan Egeland: and that Israel is insisting to control every single kilo that
Jan Egeland: goes across the border, even from Egypt.
Jan Egeland: So, our arms are tied, really.
Jan Egeland: We're, we're impotent.
Tim Sebastian: They admitted that?
Jan Egeland: They admit it.
Jan Egeland: I mean that's about by the deeds.
Jan Egeland: I mean not a single truck goes from Egypt
Jan Egeland: directly into Gaza without it having been monitored
Jan Egeland: by Israeli forces, on the Israeli side of the border.
Jan Egeland: It's-, we have a-, you should go and see.
Jan Egeland: It's a line to come in the line to come in the queue to be monitored
Jan Egeland: and cleared, to go back and into the no-man's-land,
Jan Egeland: to be reloaded in local trucks, to go the starving children of Gaza.
Jan Egeland: It's — it has been a defunct system from day one.
Tim Sebastian: Jan Egeland, where do you see all this in another six months?
Tim Sebastian: More violence, more suffering?
Jan Egeland: I really think, Tim, it-, we will not have this assault forever.
Jan Egeland: In six months the war must be over.
Jan Egeland: I hope it's over in a week, really.
Jan Egeland: And that we are spared for the bloodbath in Rafah.
Jan Egeland: But then we may have less attention and a ruined
Jan Egeland: Gaza that needs somehow to become liveable for the people who may still be trapped there.
Jan Egeland: Most people will, well, I think want to leave.
Jan Egeland: That's what they told me when I was there.
Jan Egeland: This, the final of all of these wars, has made us believe this is no future
Jan Egeland: for our children.
Jan Egeland: We will try to go to Europe.
Jan Egeland: We will try to go elsewhere.
Jan Egeland: So I think there will be an exodus.
Jan Egeland: I think there will be too little resources for the rebuilding.
Jan Egeland: My organization, Norwegian Refugee Council,
Jan Egeland: has been charged by, by leading the cluster
Jan Egeland: of organizations responsible for shelter, housing, if you like.
Jan Egeland: There are 400,000-plus homes destroyed or damaged.
Jan Egeland: 400,000!
Jan Egeland: More than that.
Jan Egeland: It's beyond belief.
Jan Egeland: And that needs to be rebuilt.
And six months from now on, people will still be living,
at best, in tents.
Tim Sebastian: Do you think many of the Palestinians will get pushed
Tim Sebastian: into the Sinai?
Tim Sebastian: There have been rumors that Egypt has actually been haggling over the price
Tim Sebastian: for accepting them.
Tim Sebastian: Do you believe those rumors?
Jan Egeland: Well, what I understand is that the extremists in Israeli politics
Jan Egeland: and Israeli cabinet want to ethnically cleanse people out of
Jan Egeland: Gaza and into Sinai, from where they will not necessarily
Jan Egeland: have the right to return to a rebuilt Gaza, that may now even be colonized
Jan Egeland: by the settlers who are celebrating in Israel what is happening.
Jan Egeland: And they're hopeful stealing of the land from the Palestinians.
Jan Egeland: So all of this, we have to fight.
Jan Egeland: None of this is a given.
Jan Egeland: All of this can be reversed.
Jan Egeland: And I hope that Israel, that needs to have recognition,
Jan Egeland: needs to be living in security, needs to not be attacked by
Jan Egeland: extremists as they were on the 7th of October,
Jan Egeland: I hope that Israel will come to their senses.
Jan Egeland: I hope that the United States, UK, Germany and
Jan Egeland: others will understand that it is counterproductive for Israel,
Jan Egeland: what has been done in the last few months, if we want
Jan Egeland: Israel to live in security and in peace and in recognition,
Jan Egeland: being recognized by their neighbors, there has to be a completely
Jan Egeland: different policy from Israel.
Tim Sebastian: You were closely involved with the peace talks
Tim Sebastian: that led to the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians in 1993,
Tim Sebastian: accords which ultimately failed to bring a lasting peace settlement.
Tim Sebastian: But you have said, that the leaders who are now in
Tim Sebastian: key positions don't have the same stature, aren't of the same caliber
Tim Sebastian: that they were in 1993, that they're populists on both sides.
Tim Sebastian: What can you expect from those populists, as you call them?
Jan Egeland: Yeah, I say it's a complete lack of leadership, of course.
Jan Egeland: Extremists took to cabinet positions in Israel,
Jan Egeland: and on the Palestinian side they are split and Hamas assaulted
Jan Egeland: Israel on the 7th of October and killed hundreds of civilians.
Jan Egeland: The Palestinian administration is very weak and old.
Jan Egeland: So what I hope is, that the Israeli political
Jan Egeland: establishment will recognize that their ways have been
Jan Egeland: counterproductive for the future of Israel.
Jan Egeland: I hope that on the Palestinian side, there is a recognition that we need
Jan Egeland: to be uniting and we need to have a new...
Jan Egeland: We need to cooperate as Palestinians for a future,
Jan Egeland: that there will be new leaderships on both sides.
Jan Egeland: And, most importantly, we need the United States, we need
Jan Egeland: the European Union, and we need the Gulf countries and
Jan Egeland: Egypt and Jordan, the two most important neighboring countries,
Jan Egeland: to cooperate in pushing for a solution.
Jan Egeland: Because I think alone, Israelis and Palestinians will be
Jan Egeland: incapable and unwilling to find a common future.
Tim Sebastian: You getting any sleep these days?
Tim Sebastian: Is there any kind of realistic hope that you're managing to cling to?
Tim Sebastian: I wonder what the effect is on you, of all the suffering that
Tim Sebastian: you've seen close up.
Jan Egeland: Well, I feel that this has been one of the worst
Jan Egeland: periods of my 40 years as a humanitarian worker.
Jan Egeland: Because the needs have grown so exponentially, the resources
Jan Egeland: available for our solidarity has leveled off or gone down.
Jan Egeland: And international politics are, international relations are not
Jan Egeland: constructive, nor effective, nor efficient.
Jan Egeland: But we're not giving up hope.
Tim Sebastian: Jan Egeland, we have to leave it there.
Tim Sebastian: Thank you so much for being on Conflict Zone.
Tim Sebastian: Appreciate your time.
Tim Sebastian: Thank you.