While the international community and the head of the UN demand the “massive arrival of aid to the north of the Gaza Strip”; Israel announces that it will stop working with the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), the main source of humanitarian aid to the enclave.
“UNRWA is part of the problem and now we will stop working with them. We are actively eliminating the UNRWA service because they perpetuate the conflict instead of trying to alleviate it,” Israeli government spokesman David Mencer told reporters on Monday. The Israeli Government takes this drastic measure in the middle of a dispute with the international organization over its alleged unproven links with the Islamist group Hamas.
A day before these statements, the commissioner general of UNRWA had already warned that Israel had informed the UN that it will not approve more humanitarian convoys directed to the north of the Gaza Strip, where famine is already a reality. According to the Israeli spokesperson’s note, the ban appears to extend to the entire enclave.
The commissioner recalled that UNRWA, which provides services to almost six million Palestinians in different countries and is the most important humanitarian actor in the Gaza Strip, is in the midst of war “the main support” for more than two million internally displaced people in the enclave and the only one that can provide “life-saving assistance” in the north.
“This is outrageous and makes it intentional to obstruct life-saving assistance during a man-made famine. These restrictions must be lifted,” Lazzarini cried. The commissioner indicated that if UNRWA is prevented from carrying out its mandate in Gaza, “the clock will run faster towards famine and many more will die of hunger, dehydration and lack of shelter.”
The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, joined Lazzarini’s condemnation by calling Israel’s decision to stop UNRWA convoys on Monday “totally unacceptable.” “The decision not to allow UNRWA convoys to northern Gaza where we have a dramatic famine situation is totally unacceptable,” said the UN chief at a press conference in Amman with the Jordanian Foreign Minister, Ayman Safadi. Guterres recalled that it is “absolutely essential to have a massive supply of humanitarian aid now,” which means “opening more entry points.”
The news comes at a time when international pressure is growing for Israel to allow more humanitarian aid access to the strip, where half of the population is at imminent risk of famine, according to a recent UN report. In parallel, voices calling for an immediate ceasefire are also increasing, a request that the members of the UN Security Council approved this Monday almost unanimously, with the only exception of the abstention of the United States (a gesture that infuriated Israel). .
Israel did not hide its desire to expel the agency from the enclave, while accusing the institution of having direct links with the Islamist group Hamas, after revealing in January that 12 of its 30,000 employees participated in the October 7 attacks. , although Lazzarini assures that they did not present conclusive evidence. However, given the need for “urgent action”, UNRWA immediately dismissed those employees and an internal investigation was opened, led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, who this week presented her preliminary conclusions, which endorse neutrality. of the agency’s humanitarian activity, although it detected “critical areas.
However, Israel maintains that Hamas infiltration of the agency runs much deeper and that more than 2,130 of its employees in Gaza, about 17 percent, have active ties to “terrorist” groups, some 480 of whom are members of armed wings of the agency. Hamas or Islamic Jihad and 1,650 belong to the political movement. The Israeli army has attacked UNRWA warehouses and convoys in recent weeks.
As soon as Israel made such accusations in January, 18 countries announced that they were withdrawing their funds, including its main donors – the US, Germany, Japan and France – which has meant a budget cut of 450 million dollars in full response. emergency in the Gaza Strip.
Countries such as Canada, Sweden, Australia and the European Union itself have announced in recent weeks their intention to resume funding to UNRWA due to the inconsistency of the evidence presented by Israel regarding links with Hamas. Other countries, such as Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, maintained their allocations and even announced additional funds to mitigate the coup.
