Appointed at the end of December by the United Nations Security Council, former Dutch minister Sigrid Kaag takes office this Monday, January 8. This is not her first mission for the UN.
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Israeli media accuse him of being hostile to the Jewish state. Aged 62, Sigrid Kaag is married to a former Palestinian minister of Yasser Arafat in the 1990s. In an interview in 1996, she accused Benyamin Netanyahu, then already Prime Minister, of “ racist “, ” demagogue ” And ” enemy of peace “.
But the UN rejects the criticism. The organization announced on Tuesday, December 26, its appointment to the post of coordinator of humanitarian aid and reconstruction in Gaza, after a Security Council resolution on aid to the Palestinian territory bombed and besieged by Israel. Sigrid Kaag will also have the task of putting “ establishes a UN mechanism to accelerate shipments of humanitarian aid to Gaza through states not parties to the conflict », Specified the spokesperson for Secretary General Antonio Guterres in a press release.
Several missions in the Middle East
A graduate of Oxford, the National School of Administration and the American University in Cairo, Sigrid Kaag began working for the United Nations in 1994. Management positions in several agencies such as the International Organization for Migration, Unicef, then Unrwa, the office which helps Palestinian refugees. Sigrid Kaag then multiplies missions in the region. In 2013, she was appointed head of the mission to ban chemical weapons in Syria. In Damascus, she was nicknamed the Dutch “iron lady”. Two years later, she became UN special coordinator for Lebanon, in the midst of the Syrian refugee crisis.
Returning to the Netherlands in 2017, she experienced a meteoric political rise. Elected leader of the social liberal party D66 in 2020, she held ministerial posts. Since 2022, Sigrid Kaag has been Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Finance, before announcing her resignation to devote herself to her new role. “ I think it is very important to have chosen a senior official who has extensive experience in the United Nations, who speaks Arabic and who is used to dealing with problems in this region, to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza which is frankly unacceptable », greets Richard Makepeace, member of the British NGO Medical Aid for Palestinians, interviewed by RFI.
Necessary flexibility
Triggered after a bloody Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, the conflict between the Jewish state and the Palestinian movement has forced 1.9 million people to flee their homes in the Gaza Strip, or 85% of the population, according to the UN. Famine threatens in the territory and most hospitals are out of service. International aid is arriving in insufficient quantities in the enclave, subjected by Israel to a total siege since October 9 after already more than 16 years of Israeli blockade. “ It’s one thing to send more medical supplies, water, food, fuel, and whatever else is needed to Gaza. But it’s another thing to get that aid across the border to those who need it. This will require more flexibility in working with Israeli forces, to make the work of humanitarians less dangerous », warns Richard Makepeace.
Also listenGaza, the humanitarian catastrophe
Impossible mission ? Head of operations for the NGO Première Urgence Internationale, Olivier Routeau is in any case cautious about Sigrid Kaag’s ability to make things happen quickly. “ The idea, I think, behind this appointment is to be able to create change, to create a space to have more listening to humanitarian issues which are more than significant in the Gaza Strip today, he says, at the microphone of RFI. But I still remain skeptical that a single person will succeed in finding all the solutions given the blockages we face. »
Three months after the start of this war, the ground fighting between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters, as well as the devastating Israeli aerial bombardments, show no sign of respite. According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, Israeli military retaliatory operations in Gaza left 20,915 dead, mostly women, adolescents and children, as well as 54,918 injured.
(And with AFP)