UN agency for Palestinians warns against its dismantling
UNITED NATIONS, United States: Dismantling the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, as sought by Israel, would accelerate Gaza’s slide into famine and doom generations of children to despair, the organisation’s head warned Wednesday.
Israel has accused 12 of the roughly 13,000 people working in the Gaza Strip for the agency known as UNRWA of participating in the Oct 7 Hamas attack which prompted the Israeli military campaign against Gaza.
Israel also accuses the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees of being a front for Hamas, which controls Gaza. It says the agency employs more than 400 “terrorists” in the besieged territory.
UNRWA is a major provider of education as well as food to Palestinian refugees, defined as Palestinians who fled or were expelled around the time of Israel’s 1948 creation, or their descendants.
However, the agency is the backbone of UN humanitarian operations in Gaza, its director Philippe Lazzarini told the UN Security Council.
Referring to Israel, he said there is an “insidious campaign” under way to dismantle UNRWA and that this would have lasting consequences.
“In the short-term, it will deepen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and accelerate the onset of famine,” Lazzarini said. “In the longer-term, it will jeopardise the transition from ceasefire to ‘day after’ by depriving a traumatised population of essential services.”
UNRWA said it fired the 12 employees accused by Israel of taking part in the October Hamas attack and is now the subject of an internal UN investigation.