Philippe lazzarini, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you, stephen. You run the unwra relief agency. You have 13,000 staff inside gaza. You currently are not able to visit gaza. What is it like when you hear that, as yesterday, wednesday, six members of your staff have been killed in an israeli bomb attack? this is always absolutely devastating. Yesterday i was boarding the plane coming from cairo to london, when i heard the news. And this happened in a school which was also sheltering at that time 12,000 people. And they are in this school because they still believe that the united nations flag can protect them. Yesterday, six staff working in the shelter, providing assistance, organising, in fact, the lives of these families, have been killed. Now 220 staff since the beginning of the war. The worst, stephen, is to know that maybe tomorrow we will even have more staff being killed. And the question is, when will this end? not only staff is being targeted, but we have also the united nations premises. Two thirds of our installations have now been damaged, and more than 500 people have been killed in this installation. You just used the phrase, staff are being targeted, unwra staff. The israelis would absolutely and categorically reject that. They say that in this particular case, the strike on the school, they had clear, irrefutable information that hamas was using it as a command and control centre, and they took all the measures they could to mitigate the loss of life for those that were not hamas, but were civilians inside the school. I'm not aware of all the measures which have been taken. This shelter, which is a school in nuseirat, a few days ago was used for our polio vaccination campaign. It is sheltering 12,000 people. We have united nations staff living there. We had absolutely no information before the strike. You had no information, but are you categorically rejecting the israeli statement that hamas was using it as a command and control centre? i have absolutely no information. This is an allegation coming from the israelis. I have absolutely no means to verify this information. They go further, the israelis — they say that hamas is consistently abusing civilian infrastructure in violation of international law and they say that time upon time, that involves facilities that belong to unwra. This is not, in their view, an isolated case. I have constantly expressed concern about the use of our facilities. We keep hearing that we have an armed group, palestinian hamas, using our facilities. We also hear about the use of our facilities by the israeli army. And i also believe. . . Sorry, let's go through this piece by piece. You say, we constantly hear. . . How do you hear that your facilities are being used by palestinian armed militants, by gunmen? i mean, who tells you and what do you do about it? always through the media, always after an event. That's when we are receiving the information. We have never, ever received an information ahead of a military strike on one of these installations. But doesn't that mean that your staff are not telling you about hamas presence inside their facilities? that seems to be a fundamental problem. I do not believe that our staff, if they would know that there is a military operation centre, would dare to stay or to expose themselves in such an installation. How close do you believe you are becoming to concluding that it's impossible for unwra to function? i mean, if you are saying to me that, yeah, we get reports that hamas has been using our facilities for their own purposes, but there's not much we can do about it, and you know that the israelis, if they find hamas operatives in your facilities, will then strike those facilities, it seems to me you must be coming close to a point where you can't operate. Stephen, i did not say we are getting reports that they are operating in our installation. What i said is, each time there has been a strike in one of our installations, we hear the justification that there might have been an hamas or a military cell operating from there. We have absolutely no means at this stage to investigate, and this is the reason why i keep constantly, because of this blatant disregard of the un installation, that we need to have an independent investigation. But just to my point about, in the current circumstances, whether you have to consider whether it is safe both for your own staff and for the people who are using your facilities for you to continue operations — are you having to consider that? we have. . . We are on a daily basis asking the question about, how far can we go with the operation? what can we continue to do? but let's see what happened over the last two weeks. We have succeeded with partners to roll out a massive polio vaccination campaign in the south, in the middle region and also in the north, which means that despite the dangerosity of the environment where we operate, we still can provide critical assistance to the population. And one of the reasons is because our staff is also part of the population we are providing support. Now, as we are talking to each other, i am getting information, because this is real time, people will be watching it in a recording, but in real time, i'm getting information that the idf, the israeli military, are now saying they have evidence that nine people killed in the school were hamas operatives. They seem to believe that some of your staff were amongst those hamas operatives. You have already said to me it's impossible for us to know whether hamas is operating, but you would certainly surely know if some of your staff were hamas operatives. Again, this is an information that we have not received. You might recall in the past, there have been allegations about 19 staff of the unrwa who allegedly might have participated to the horrendous attack of october 7. There has been an investigation and the investigation did not end up conclusive. We have also received later on a letter from the israeli authorities about 100 staff, allegedly members of the hamas, and i have immediately told them, i take this allegation seriously, can you help us to look into it? so far, we haven't received any response. I mean, it's a profound problem for you right now, isn't it, that israel clearly doesn't see unwra as a good faith actor, as a neutral player in gaza? i think the profound problem goes beyond that, stephen. There is a deliberate attempt to eliminate and to dismantle the agency, and the real reason behind this has nothing to do with neutrality issues. There are political considerations behind it. Ultimately, there is a desire to strip the palestinians from the refugee stature and beyond that also to undermine the future aspirations of the palestinians for self—determination. And that's the reason why unwra has become such a target. Sorry. I really again want to be clear what you're saying. You are saying that there is an intent, as far as you see it, on the part of israel, to what, destroy unwra? yes. And we heard it from the beginning of the war, that one of the objectives of the war ultimately will also to be to dismantle unwra. We have seen also politically, but also legislatively, the effort taking place in israel about trying to label the agency as a terrorist organisation and also to expel the agency from any territory under the control of israel. So there is a deliberate objective to dismantle the organisation. But, of course, you know, the israelis would say time and again, this isn't about unwra, it's about hamas being allowed to use unwra facilities, or indeed further, it's about hamas having infiltrated unwra and actually recruited unwra staff to their cause. And they would point, for example, to the evidence that they have over the last few months collated suggesting that unwra staff were involved in the atrocious october 7 attack. And you know as well as i do, after your investigations, that you came up ultimately with nine individuals within your staff who were fired because you believed that there was convincing evidence they had been part of hamas�*s operation. Well, stephen, there have been two processes. One has been an investigation about the neutrality policy of the organisation. And we'll get to that, that's the investigation undertaken by the french former foreign minister catherine colonna. Exactly. And we'll get to her conclusions in a minute. But there was also an internal investigation to assess the validity of israel's claim that first it was 12, but then 19 individuals had been involved in october 7 and were part of the unwra staff. As i put it to you again, there is compelling evidence that some individuals were involved. I mean, there's one particular case which has been explored by the washington post and others, where an individual who is an unwra staff member was captured on video in be�*eri, one of the settlements that was attacked on october 7, standing over the dead body of an israeli citizen. That body was then put into a car and driven off. Now, all of that is an allegation, but it is a convincing allegation based on facial recognition and other investigation detail. You've had to come to terms with that. Are you prepared to accept that that happened? so, stephen, from day one, when i received the allegation, because of the severity of this allegation and because the idea that staff might have participated is so horrible on the october 7 massacre, i have taken a series of measures. The first one was to dismiss the staff, but the second one is the investigation that you are referring to. The outcome of this investigation is not as conclusive as we would have liked to have. They said, indeed, we have no evidence for ten people, but for the nine we might have, if we are in a position to authenticate the information. So there have been a lot of conditionality and none came to a formal conclusion. Having said that, despite that, we have maintained the dismissal of the staff, and among the ten, no—one has been yet reinstated at the exception of one staff member, because we are still looking at other allegations about possible participation in armed groups. You panicked, didn't you, when these allegations first came out because you fired, i think, was it 12 people, with no due process at all? as soon as the israelis made the initial allegation, you fired these staff members and you said you did it because you were so worried about the reputation of the agency and believed that your ability to deliver critical humanitarian assistance was at stake if i didn't take the decision to fire. Now that you're telling me it's all very unclear and the evidence is not in any way conclusive, do you regret your own reaction? i don't regret, and if i would have to take a decision, i would definitely take a similar decision today. It was in the best interest of the agency, and, thanks to all the measures we have taken, we have also been able to restore the confidence of our partners and the donors. You also talked to me about the catherine colonna investigation, which was about the wider question of neutrality within unwra, the degree to which unwra could be regarded as an objective, impartial actor on the ground in the gaza strip. She concluded that unwra quote, must do more to improve its neutrality, its staff vetting, and its transparency. She also concluded there was a problem with some of the educational textbooks that unwra allows to be used in gaza's classrooms, which she says contain objectionable content. She says, although they are relatively marginal, these issues constitute a grave violation of unrwa's neutrality. That's not good, is it? well, to start with, stephen, the first conclusion of catherine colonna report was to say that unwra, as an agency, has system much more robust than the average of any other un agency or international organisation operating in the region. But, because of the specificity of the agency, its footprint and the complex environment we are operating in, which is also divided and very emotional, much more can be done. And she has proposed a certain number of recommendations that both the secretary general and myself have immediately embraced. Many of these recommendations the agency can implement alone, but other recommendations will require the support of member states, donors, but also of host country. Some countries restored funding after the colonna report came out, the united states didn't — having suspended it after israel's initial accusations concerning october 7. That means that you're short of, what is it, roughly $450 million a year that the united states gives to unwra. Given all of the vast need in gaza, how close to running out of money are you? well, we still have a shortfall between now and the end of the year. I'm still confident that we will be able to bridge the gap, and i hope that the united states will resume its funding next year. For the time being, it is suspended at least until march 2025. Now, the united states has been our main donors, but it is true also that we had new countries who have contributed to the agency, and, in addition of that, we had an exceptional generosity of private donors. Since october 7, we raised 150 million usdjust from private donations. In terms of the situation on the ground, we know that, what, 90% of gazans have been displaced from their homes. We know that hunger is rampant across the gaza strip. Are you able to get the supplies in that you need to get in right now? and if not, who's blocking them? for the time being, we do not have the supply we would like to have. The humanitarian situation in gaza has worsened month after month since the beginning of this war. As you said, people are facing diseases, are facing hunger, are facing death, and now they are concentrated in a portion which represent only 10% of the gaza strip. The supply in average today, we have about 50 trucks coming in. If we are not in a position in the near future to substantially again increase, we will again be confronted to a situation where we will draw the alarm about possible looming hunger. You in the past have used some extremely compelling language about the situation, you've called gaza hell. You've described it as a war on children, given the scale of child death in gaza. You've suggested that what you see before you objectively looks like violation of international law, given the scale of the killing and the injury of civilians. Do you want to see accountability for the crimes committed, if you believe they are crimes in gaza, and do you think that accountability is going to come, because you've talked an awful lot about accountability? i really hope there will be accountability. I do believe that the international humanitarian law and the geneva convention have been blatantly disregarded. It has almost become banal, normalised to disregard international humanitarian law. And if we let this continue, my fear is that it will become irrelevant. There is one thing, stephen, ijust come back from cairo, in the region they have the feeling that there is a double standard in the application of international humanitarian law — it should be applied everywhere in the world, except in the context of israel—palestine. So, yes, i do believe we need accountability. I do believe that we will need for most of the crimes we have observed, an independent investigation commission and those responsible will have to be made accountable. In your opinion, is it a violation of international law for israel to bomb your unwra facilities, even if they have compelling evidence of the existence, the presence of hamas gunmen inside? if you have thousands of civilian and families sheltering in un compound, and if israel has evidence that they are hamas operatives being present and being a target, they should take the necessary precaution to prevent a large death toll among the civilians. So, yes, most of the time people are just informed at the last minute and then we hear all the precautions have been taken, which is absolutely not the case. What about the west bank? because unrwa's operations go far beyond gaza, they go to the neighbouring countries, but you have a major operation inside the west bank. In recent days, we've seen israeli military operations expand in their scope and intensity across the west bank. To what extent do you fear that the devastation and the loss of life that we have seen over the last 11 months in gaza could be coming to the west bank? i'm very concerned about this. The war of gaza is now spreading to the west bank. If there wouldn't be a war in gaza, all our attention would be on the west bank. There is a kind of a silent war boiling in the west bank. And we have seen recently the operations which have taken place injenin and tulkarem, security operations, which in reality has inflicted large—scale destruction and damages on the infrastructure, but also on the population living in the camps. So you have a similar pattern. And we have also seen the use recently of drones for strikes in the west bank, which is also a new trend. You are a sticking plaster agency really, aren't you? i mean, there is nothing unwra can do except try to maintain some sort of baseline humanitarian support for palestinians in the refugee camps in gaza, in the west bank, but the situation around you is getting worse and worse. To what extent do you fear that in the end your sticking plaster is going to become irrelevant, that it is going to become, particularly in gaza, unliveable for the civilian population in that territory? i wouldn't say that we are becoming irrelevant, but we might be in a situation where operating is becoming more and more difficult, which is already the case, by the way, in gaza and in the west bank. We cannot deploy all the activity traditionally an agency like ours are providing to the population. Now my fear today is education. We have today 600,000 girls and boys living in the rubble in gaza, deeply traumatised, who haven't been at school for one year. According to a study from cambridge university, they have already lost two years and the more we will wait, the more we are sowing the seeds for more revenge, resentment and extremism. And hence, if you get rid of an organisation like ours today, who will step in and provide education at scale to such a number of youths? have you ever felt bleaker than you feel today? i feel definitely bleak and grim. It keeps me, what's going on keeps me awake every day, every night. I always wonder if it is worse. But i do believe that, in my function, i have to continue to convey the voice of the palestinian in gaza, the voice of the palestinian refugees, because if i wouldn't do it, who else would do it? so, yes, ifeel bleak, ifeel grim, but that's not important. Philippe lazzarini, we have to end there, thank you forjoining me on hardtalk. Thank you, stephen. Hello there. Thursday brought us a mixture of sunshine and showers once again, but things are going to be changing in the next few days. Right now, it's still cold, we have that north—westerly breeze, but things are going to get milder over the weekend, although there will be some cloud around, and for some of us, some rain as well. But at the moment, we've got those north—to—north—westerly winds. Those are going to be replaced and the colder air cut off by winds coming in from the atlantic, and that will lift the temperatures, especially over the weekend, and probably beyond as well, as we'll see later. But a really cold start to friday, with a touch of frost in places. A sunny start, some cloud will develop, but we're not really expecting the showers this time. Northern ireland clouds over later, but the rain is holding off until right at the end of the day. Ahead of that, temperatures 1a degrees for much of scotland and northern ireland, again. A little bit warmer, though, or less cold, for england and wales, 16 or 17 degrees here. And the following night won't be as cold. We've got higher pressure in the south, these weather fronts are coming in around this area of low pressure, and picking the winds up across northern areas as we head into saturday. A little bit of rain first thing, but its later in the day that we'll see the main band of rain coming across northern ireland and into western scotland. England and wales likely to be dry, some cloud, the best of the sunshine across eastern parts of england, and it's warming up a bit here as well, temperatures of 19, maybe 20 degrees, but right the way across the uk temperatures are going to be higher than what we've got at the moment. And during the second half of the weekend, that weather front slips its way further south, running into that area of high pressure. It's going to be weakening somewhat. Still be some cloud and some patchy rain on it. In the morning it's going to be affecting northern england, and that will clear away. Should see some rain, patchy rain for wales, maybe the midlands into the far south—west of england, and further north, more sunshine arriving and it's not going to be quite as windy either. We've still got temperatures of about 17, maybe 18 degrees in the north, and temperatures could reach 20 in the south east of england, where it should stay dry on sunday. That weather front continues to weaken on sunday night. We await another weather system to come in from the atlantic on monday, but for the most part, high pressure is going to be in charge on monday, and that means there will be some sunshine around, maybe a bit more cloud, though, coming in from the atlantic this time on monday. Most of the rain is restricted towards the far northwest of the uk, so, many places away from here are probably going to be dry. Some sunshine again for the east, and we've still got those temperatures reaching 20, maybe even 21 degrees in the south east of england, so that's a good deal better than what we've got at the moment. High pressure still around as we head further into next week. These weather systems are getting steered more towards the north and out of the way. A bit breezy across northern parts of scotland, but it should be a drier day, i think, on tuesday, and the rest of the uk will see some cloud but also some spells of sunshine, and the winds will be quite light as well. Temperatures getting up to 19 degrees quite widely, reaching 21 in the south east of england. The jet stream is going to be a bit further north in the outlook, it's steering areas of low pressure to the north of the uk, up towards iceland. Instead, we're going to be dominated by that large area of high pressure. Now, that's going to bring a lot of dry weather into next week. The position of the high is going to be crucial. We could well find, with light winds, some mist and fog patches around in the morning, before an easterly wind picks up, later on in the week, but again, it's looking dry and there will be some sunshine — it's reasonably warm by day, it's not going to be as cold at night. Live from london, this is bbc news. Live from london, this is bbc news. Sir keir starmer has arrived sir keir starmer has arrived in washington for talks in washington for talks with president biden, with president biden, with the war in ukraine high with the war in ukraine high on the agenda. On the agenda. This comes as president putin this comes as president putin warns the use of long—range warns the use of long—range western missiles inside russia itself would change western missiles inside russia itself would change the conflict. The conflict. The funeral of former england the funeral of former england manager, sven—goran eriksson, manager, sven—goran eriksson, who died last month, will take who died last month, will take place in sweden today. Place in sweden today. And the duke of sussex has told and the duke of sussex has told the bbc he is excited the bbc he is excited about turning a0 this weekend. About turning a0 this weekend.