ANPKaag hung her own photo between her predecessors at Finance on Friday
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 12:36
Former Minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs Sigrid Kaag starts her new job today as UN coordinator of humanitarian aid and reconstruction in Gaza. According to UN Secretary General Guterres, she is perfect for the job. She speaks fluent Arabic and five other languages and has a wealth of experience as a former UN employee and diplomat, particularly in the Middle East.
Its first task is to mobilize humanitarian aid for the more than 2 million residents of Gaza. The vast majority were driven by Israel to the far south of the Gaza Strip. And even in the south they are not safe from Israeli bombs and missiles.
There is a major shortage of food, drinking water and fuel. The population suffers from food shortages and diseases. “The situation she will find is terrible,” says former UNWRA employee Lex Takkenberg. UNWRA is the UN organization that has been providing humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees, including in Gaza, since shortly after the establishment of the State of Israel.
Controls on weapons
In order to get the aid going properly, Kaag must win the trust of the Israelis. Aid is now seriously inadequate because Israel checks every truck with aid that enters Gaza for weapons, ammunition and gasoline for Hamas. “That’s a huge one bottleneck because the number of people Israel has for that is limited,” says Takkenberg.
The UN wants to take over controls in whole or in part, so that more trucks can enter Gaza from Egypt. This requires a lot of diplomatic consultation. Takkenberg believes that Kaag, given her knowledge and experience, may be able to complete this assignment successfully.
Refugees are also not safe in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip:
‘Where should I go now’
Reconstruction is a different story. The war is still raging. Sources in the Israeli army and intelligence services said yesterday The Guardian that the battle could last another year. “As long as the war continues, there is nothing to rebuild at all,” says Takkenberg. “And a large part of Gaza has been bombed to such an extent that a rebuilding operation will be an enormous challenge. effort of tens of billions and many years.”
The enormous quantities of building materials will have to be brought in from Egypt or other countries. Israel will also have to cooperate in this. “I think it is Ms. Kaag’s job to design and negotiate the agreements that need to be made about this with Israel and the other parties involved.”
Mission impossible
Diplomacy expert Robert van de Roer points out another difficulty. Kaag was sent by the UN and the relationship between Israel and the UN has been difficult for decades. Statements by Kaag’s boss Guterres at the beginning of the war made matters worse.
The UN chief said after the Hamas attack on October 7 that the attack had “not occurred in a vacuum” and that he is deeply concerned about the “clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are seeing in Gaza”. He also said Palestinians are suffering from “56 years of suffocating occupation.” Guterres is therefore more or less persona non grata in Israel, Van der Roer said yesterday in the NOS radio program With a view to tomorrow.
What is also not an advantage in the negotiations with Israel is, according to him, that Kaag is married to a Palestinian who served as a deputy minister under the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat. “On the other hand, Kaag himself has also said that Israel has the right to self-defense within international law. And Kaag also has the support of Washington, the Israeli government’s great ally.”
According to Van de Roer, the big question is what Kaag will do if Israel does not cooperate sufficiently in providing aid to the residents of Gaza. “That is really the delicate point for Kaag. Will she dare to take action against Israel or another party that opposes it? It is actually a mission impossible“It’s definitely brave and I’m also told she thought about whether she should do it.”
EPAAbdullah Fadil, UNICEF representative in Pakistan and Kaag employee in Syria
UNICEF representative in Pakistan Abdullah Fadil was Kaag’s right-hand man when she persuaded Syria to give up its chemical weapons ten years ago. “She managed it in one year. Given the complex relationships and the fact that it was a war, that was a huge success,” says Fadil. He believes this was due to the trust she managed to build, transparency and sharing information with everyone as soon as it came. “That all helped her.”
According to Fadil, the assignment she now has is one of the most difficult she has had: because of the complexity of the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians, because of the humanitarian aid that needs to be delivered, the destruction that is taking place and the involvement of so many countries involved in the conflict.
Fadil sees Kaag as the ideal person to take on this assignment. “She is uniquely qualified, both from a professional and moral point of view. She has shown that she can be impartial and that she does not take sides on difficult issues, except perhaps when it comes to essential values that we know at the UN. So yes, I think she is ideally suited, even though this may be the most difficult task she has ever taken on.”
Kaag will submit her first report on her activities to the UN Security Council before the end of the month.
2024-01-08 11:36:50
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