https://arab.news/4a9vx
- “We will ... stay and deliver,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told a conference in Oslo on Wednesday
- UNRWA is considered the backbone of humanitarian operations for Palestinians
OSLO: The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA will continue to distribute aid in the Palestinian territories despite an Israeli ban due to be implemented by the end of January, its director said Wednesday.
Despite serious international concerns, Israeli lawmakers have passed laws to bar UNRWA from operating in Israel and east Jerusalem.
The agency has faced criticism from Israeli officials that has escalated since the start of the war in Gaza, which was unleashed after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
“We will ... stay and deliver,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told a conference in Oslo on Wednesday.
“UNRWA’s local staff will remain and continue to provide emergency assistance and where possible, education and primary health care,” he said.
Lazzarini said the absence of communication between UNRWA and the Israeli authorities that will result from the ban will make the agency’s work even more dangerous in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army has been carrying out military operations there for 15 months.
With no visas, UNRWA’s non-Palestinian employees will not be able to enter Gaza and those there now will have to leave, he explained.
“Continuing to work will come at considerable personal risk for our Palestinian colleagues,” he said.
“This is due to the exceptionally hostile operating environment created by Israel’s disregard for international law and fierce disinformation campaign against the agency,” he added.
UNRWA is considered the backbone of humanitarian operations for Palestinians.
It provides aid to some six million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
The October 7, 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed 46,707 people, also mostly civilians, according to Hamas-run health ministry figures that the United Nations considers reliable.
Israel claims that a dozen UNRWA employees were involved in the deadly October 7, 2023 assault.
A series of probes, including one led by France’s former foreign minister Catherine Colonna, found some “neutrality related issues” at UNRWA but stressed that Israel had not provided evidence for its chief allegations.