00:08Hi there, I'm Maeve McMahon and you're watching 12 Minutes With.
00:12My guest today is Tom Fletcher, United Nations Humanitarian Chief based in New York and across the globe.
00:19Welcome Tom, thank you so much for joining us here.
00:22Good to have you with us on the programme.
00:23So look, the war in Iran, it's entering its third week now, but nobody seems to be stopping it.
00:28Where is the UN here?
00:29Well, the UN is on the ground, responding to the humanitarian crisis that this war is creating.
00:34So you've got to look at the crisis in Iran itself, where you've got hundreds of thousands displaced.
00:38You've got the displacement in countries already dealing with loads of refugees, Afghanistan, Pakistan.
00:44You've got a humanitarian crisis, of course, growing in Lebanon.
00:48We've also found that our access to Gaza has been restricted since the start of this war.
00:53And then we've got the crisis caused by the fact we can't get our goods through the Straits of Hormuz.
00:57And so the prices are going up of fertiliser and food.
01:01And meanwhile, you have a US president who's disregarding international law.
01:04Do you feel like the UN is being sidelined lately?
01:06Well, this is a time of impunity and division and polarisation.
01:10And a lot of people are attacking the UN.
01:12But every time you hear someone attack the UN, ask yourself what they gain by making us weaker.
01:17Because actually, impunity, brutality, polarisation, war, we were built for times like this.
01:23This is why we were invented.
01:25And look, in the last week, I've lost four colleagues on the front lines who've given their lives to go
01:31out there and save lives because of the mess the world is in right now.
01:34So, is the UN perfect? No way.
01:37But, you know, I'm not going to accept the attacks that come our way.
01:40Will the UN still exist in 10 years?
01:42Yeah, absolutely.
01:43Because we represent the imperfections of the world.
01:47It's a complicated, messy world.
01:49We wish we could do more, actually, to end these conflicts, to send out our peacekeepers and our peacemakers.
01:55We can only do that where we get a mandate from the world, from the member states.
01:59And right now, the member states are in this kind of transactional, muscular, geopolitical moment where they're pulling apart rather
02:07than pulling together.
02:08And we've got to be a force for coexistence and solidarity.
02:11And just before the war began, President Trump inaugurated his so-called Board of Peace.
02:17Did he get Board of Peace very soon?
02:19Well, I mean, we look forward to hearing more from the Board of Peace about how they're ending a number
02:23of conflicts, apparently, around the world right now.
02:25I'm dealing with the consequences of so many of those conflicts, whether it's in Sudan or South Sudan or the
02:30DRC or Gaza or, I say, Lebanon at this moment.
02:36The White House, when I talk to them, are very clear that the Board of Peace is not an alternative
02:40to the UN.
02:41And certainly the other countries that have joined it have been absolutely categoric that this is not meant to replace
02:47the UN.
02:48We're still here.
02:49And when you saw that war begin back on the 20th of February, did you know how big the humanitarian
02:54disaster that would come with it?
02:55Yeah.
02:56I mean, actually, people talk about the unpredicted consequences of this conflict, but they were quite predictable, these conflicts.
03:03We know how much we rely on the Straits of Hormuz for commercial traffic and humanitarian traffic to so many
03:09of the places we serve.
03:10Somalia, which may go into greater levels of starvation because we can't get our supplies through the Straits.
03:17But we also knew the risks that Iran would basically take the conflict into Lebanon, across the Gulf.
03:24And what we're seeing is civilians and civilian infrastructure hit in all of these zones, these theatres of the conflict.
03:33How many people are internally displaced in Iran?
03:35Hundreds of thousands, we estimate.
03:37What's interesting at the moment is that they're not crossing the borders at the scale that we expected.
03:42So you've got a lot of instability in those countries of the region.
03:45And, of course, the economic crisis is driving up that movement of people.
03:49But we're not seeing the large numbers of Iranians cross the borders at this stage.
03:54And what we're understanding from the local authorities is that local communities are responding and taking people into their homes.
04:00But that's a situation we're watching very closely.
04:03What about a potential spillover of refugees coming to Europe, potentially, even though you're not seeing that now yet?
04:09I think we will.
04:10I think we will.
04:11Because this crisis can't be put neatly back into a box.
04:16Wars don't just end at frontiers.
04:18And actions have consequences.
04:20And we're in a period, globally right now, of reckless adventurism in so many places.
04:27And, of course, civilians will be displaced by that.
04:31So how should you prepare for this?
04:32We've got to think about how we coexist between host communities and those arriving in our communities.
04:38Now, that will be politically very difficult.
04:40And the extremes in our politics will use these crises of people on the move to try and gain more
04:46support, to go for more populist, anti-migrant policies.
04:51But, look, one way to help people find their own livelihoods and lives and get their kids to school, the
04:58things that we all want to do in their own communities, is to make sure we get support for them
05:03there.
05:03Then they won't choose to travel to other countries.
05:06And just on that point of people on the move, we've seen thousands internally displaced in Lebanon.
05:11What is the situation like there?
05:13Really grim.
05:14And my boss, the Secretary General, was in Lebanon at the end of last week.
05:18And I spent all weekend on the phone to our humanitarian team there.
05:21We were trying to get a convoy of support down to the south of Lebanon, which is taking a real
05:25smashing up at the moment.
05:27And we had to turn back because of the danger levels.
05:30We lost a colleague in Lebanon last week as well.
05:34So it's getting more and more dangerous for us to operate.
05:38And the needs are going up.
05:39We've got tens of thousands displaced, many of them people who were displaced already by previous conflicts.
05:46Yeah, we saw UN peacekeepers.
05:47They were shot at and wounded.
05:48We need that de-escalation by all sides right now.
05:52Our peacekeepers are there to try to keep the peace, literally.
05:56You know, that's what they're called.
05:57And they should always be protected.
05:59What we're hearing from the Israelis is that there could be a major ground offensive in the south of Lebanon.
06:04Do you fear that Lebanon could be the next Gaza?
06:08I do fear that.
06:09And in fact, I fear that because that's what we're hearing from some Israeli ministers right now,
06:14who are speaking in increasingly belligerent language about what they plan to do to Lebanon.
06:19One really interesting development in the last couple of weeks is that for the first time,
06:24the Lebanese government themselves are calling for direct negotiations with Israel, which hasn't happened in the past.
06:30And so there's potential here to reset the relationship in the region.
06:36But the path for that is through dialogue and diplomacy and not through more brutal violence.
06:42And when the Israeli military say they are just targeting Hezbollah or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, do you believe them?
06:47Well, that's what they're saying. But we're seeing massive damage to civilian areas as well.
06:52We're seeing a lot of damage to health care, for example.
06:57My colleagues on the ground were briefing me yesterday about the number of hospitals and clinics which have been hit
07:01in these attacks.
07:03So it's deeply troubling when you see that impact on civilian infrastructure.
07:09And as I say, schools, hospitals, these should be the first things that we're protecting in conflict.
07:14And from your contacts there on the ground, where are people moving towards?
07:17So many are moving up into Beirut.
07:20And we know there are large numbers of people sleeping rough now along the Beirut Corniche, along the seafront there.
07:27Some are going into Syria.
07:28And so some of the Syrian refugees are going back to Syria.
07:31But now you also have some Lebanese refugees now moving into Syria as well.
07:35And then many are moving up into the mountainous areas where they feel they are more safe.
07:41Because the reality is that Israel has issued these instructions to civilians to move from vast, vast areas of the
07:47country.
07:47So it doesn't leave very much space for them to seek refuge.
07:51You're in Brussels this week.
07:53What is the role of the European Union here?
07:54And fill us in on your talks with Kaya Callas and others.
07:56So the EU is one of our most principled, reliable donors of humanitarian aid.
08:02And, you know, this year we're looking to save 87 million lives globally.
08:07To do that, we're trying to raise $23 billion.
08:09Now that's less than 1% of what the world will spend this year on guns and arms and defence.
08:14It's that $23 billion is probably less than the US has already spent on this conflict in the last two
08:20and a half weeks.
08:21So I'm here to talk to the EU about how they can back that plan.
08:24Really encouraging news.
08:26Announcements coming today about more European funding to that hyper-prioritised plan.
08:31Because meanwhile, your funding is being completely cut left, right and centre.
08:34How are you coping with that?
08:35Oh, it's really rough.
08:36If I was running a business and I'd lost half of my funding in a year, then I probably wouldn't
08:41be in my job.
08:42You know, it's been really hard because what we're trying to do is reform the system.
08:45And that's something we're doing because we believe in reform, not because it's forced on us.
08:49We're trying to save as many lives as we can, but without any stability or guarantee of the money coming
08:56in.
08:57And so all the time, I'm in Afghanistan, I'm in South Sudan, I'm in Ukraine and Darfur,
09:04seeing projects that I know will close, meeting people who I know will die.
09:08You're just back from Gaza.
09:10Tell us more about the fragile ceasefire there.
09:12It is fragile.
09:14I went in about two and a half months ago, just after we got the ceasefire deal.
09:17And as a result of that ceasefire, we've hugely scaled up the effort.
09:22So we were doing 1.6 million hot meals every day, for example.
09:25We got a lot of shelter in.
09:27We did a big immunisation campaign for cholera.
09:29It wasn't enough.
09:30And kids still died of hypothermia over what was a brutal winter.
09:33But it was a big improvement.
09:35Now, since this resumption of this conflict across the Middle East, our access has been restricted again.
09:41There's only one crossing open.
09:43Kerem Shalom.
09:43Kerem Abu Salaam.
09:44So that means we get fewer trucks in, less aid, less food, less medicine, less water, less shelter.
09:50And tell us about Hamas's disarmament plans.
09:53Is that actually working?
09:55I think it was moving in the right direction.
09:57And we were seeing the appointment of a technocratic committee who were planning to go into Gaza
10:01and start to really run Gaza on that technocratic basis.
10:07But my concern at the moment is that that's all delayed by that wider escalation in the Middle East.
10:13We need to get back towards the two-state solution.
10:16And we need Israeli and Palestinian leadership that's committed to security, justice and opportunity for Palestinians and Israelis.
10:24What about the situation in the West Bank?
10:25Did you visit the West Bank?
10:26We saw this week a family of six Palestinians went out for the day and only two came home.
10:31I worry that this is one of the other issues that's slipping down the agenda while we're all thinking about
10:35Iran, the Straits of Hormuz and so on.
10:39You have very deliberate attacks from extremist settler groups at the moment against civilians across the West Bank.
10:47So we need the world to pay much more attention to what's going on there and to call for protection
10:52of civilians and accountability for those carrying out the attacks.
10:56And just a final reflection, perhaps.
10:58Do you have any hope for the Middle East?
10:59I have to have hope.
11:01You know, a famous peacemaker, George Mitchell, said diplomacy is 799 days of failure and one day of success.
11:08So every day I wake up to probably the most horrible inbox in the world.
11:14And my colleagues are going out there risking their lives every day to save lives.
11:18But I get to meet the civilians that we support across the Middle East.
11:22I get to hear their stories.
11:23I get to meet people who are surviving because of that humanitarian support.
11:28And that has to bring you hope.
11:29And ultimately, I'm an optimist about humans.
11:32I think we have these two competing instincts.
11:34One to fight for resource.
11:36And we're doing a lot of that right now.
11:37And those people are shouting pretty loudly.
11:39But another more important one, which is to work together as communities for that resource.
11:44And I believe ultimately that is the more powerful instinct that we have.
11:47And as long as I believe that, then I'll have hope.
11:50Thank you so much, Tom Fletcher, for being with us here on Euronews.
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