UN agency for Palestinians facing its ‘darkest hour’, UNRWA chief says

After Israel’s decision to outlaw the organization, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is facing its “darkest hour” and needs UN members’ ongoing support, according to its head.

“Without intervention by member states, UNRWA will collapse, plunging millions of Palestinians into chaos”, Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s commissioner-general, told the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday.

He demanded that the UN, which established UNRWA in 1949, stop the organization from being incorporated into Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Monday that it had terminated an agreement that laid the legal foundation for Israel’s relations with UNRWA in 1967.

UNRWA, the country’s newly appointed defense minister, who was at the time, claimed that the group, whose members took part in the massacre on October 7 and many of whom are Hamas operatives, is a part of the problem in the Gaza Strip and not a part of the solution.

In January, Israel claimed that a dozen of UNRWA’s Gaza employees were involved in the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas. The UN immediately began an investigation into Israel’s allegations and terminated nine of its staff members’ contracts at the time. However, Lazzarini said that despite multiple requests, Israel has not provided any evidence to support its claims.

UNRWA said it takes measures to ensure its neutrality.

However, UNRWA employees are concerned that they won’t be able to coordinate with Israeli authorities when crossing checkpoints and moving between locations in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

UNRWA provides education, healthcare and other basic services to Palestinian refugees displaced in 1948 during Israel’s creation, and their descendants, who now number nearly six million. Refugee families make up the majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million population.

“In Gaza, dismantling UNRWA will collapse the UN humanitarian response, which relies heavily on the agency’s infrastructure”, Lazzarini said.

“Only UNRWA can provide education to more than 650, 000 girls and boys in Gaza in the absence of a capable public administration or state. In the absence of UNRWA, an entire generation will be denied the right to education”, he said.

It’s time to “move on.”

Since Israel’s war on Gaza began last October, UNRWA itself has suffered heavy losses, with at least 223 of its staff killed and two-thirds of its facilities in Gaza damaged or destroyed.

The UN’s permanent observer for the State of Palestine, Riyad Mansour, stated in a statement to the General Assembly that the UN’s ban on UNRWA “is proof of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.”

Meanwhile, Hadi Hashim, the interim representative for Lebanon at the UN, said Israel’s ban was a “war crime” and noted that UNRWA was crucial not only in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, but also in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

He urged the General Assembly to take the necessary and urgent legal and political measures in order to stop this attack, which he argued was directed at UNWRA and against everyone in the world.

Jordan, South Africa and the European Union also condemned the Israeli government’s decision to ban the UN agency.

However, Danny Danon, the ambassador to Israel, called the organization “a failure.”

He claimed that UNRWA is misled into thinking it is the foundation of humanitarian efforts in Gaza. The UN needs to regain its integrity and fulfill its promise to support peace and security, according to the statement, “It is time to move on and chart a new course.”

Israeli authorities have long called for the organization’s destruction, claiming that its purpose is outdated and that it fosters anti-Israel sentiment in its staff, schools, and wider social mission. UNRWA strongly disputes this characterisation.

Source: Aljazeera