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Israel informs UN of ban on its agency for Palestinian refugees
Israel officially informed the UN on Monday of the ban on UNRWA, a UN agency considered the “backbone” of aid to refugees in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in the midst of war in the Gaza Strip plunged into a humanitarian disaster. At the same time, the Israeli army carried out new strikes in Gaza and Lebanon, where it is fighting respectively Hamas and Hezbollah, two pro-Iranian Islamist movements that it seeks to put out of harm's way.Despite the hard blows inflicted on Hezbollah, this movement continues to fire rockets at northern Israel, bordering southern Lebanon. On Monday, he said he had launched a salvo of rockets on Safed. The war in Gaza was triggered by an attack of unprecedented violence and scale carried out on October 7, 2023 by Hamas on Israeli soil. The next day and in support of Hamas, Hezbollah opened a front against Israel, which degenerated into open war last September. On the eve of the presidential election in the United States, Israel's main ally, and despite international pressure, attempts to end the hostilities have remained in vain. A week after Parliament passed a law banning the activities in Israel of the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), the Affairs foreign countries “have notified the UN of the cancellation of the agreement between Israel and UNRWA”, according to a press release. – “Collapse” -The agreement with Israel dates back to 1967, the year the occupation by Israel began of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza, as well as East Jerusalem, where UNRWA has for decades provided essential assistance to Palestinian refugees – education, health, social services, food and cash aid. Israel, long highly critical with regard to UNRWA, again accused “employees of the organization of having participated in the massacre of October 7”, according to the Israeli press release: “The UN has received countless evidence on agents of the Hamas employees of UNRWA and the use of its facilities for terrorist purposes.” “If the law is implemented, it risks causing the collapse of the international humanitarian operation in Gaza, of which UNRWA is the spine,” warned Jonathan Fowler, a spokesman for the agency. The law, which caused an international outcry on voting day October 28, must take effect 90 days after its adoption. – “Kill all the Palestinian people” – “Currently, the Palestinian people depend almost entirely on aid from abroad, especially from UNRWA, and interrupting it amounts to killing the entire Palestinian people,” said Abdel Karim Kallab, a resident of Khan Younes in southern Gaza.”We only have Unrwa (to provide aid). People will die of hunger and will not be able to feed their children,” exclaimed Houria Abou Charkh, a displaced person from Gaza City. For Hamas, Israel's decision “is an attempt to deny refugees the right to return to their homes from which they were forcibly expelled by Zionist terrorist militias more than seven decades ago.” Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after its October 7, 2023 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people , mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data, including hostages killed or died in captivity. Of 251 people kidnapped, 97 remain hostages in Gaza, 34 of whom were declared dead by the army. retaliation, the Israeli army launched a destructive offensive in Gaza which left 43,374 dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas Ministry of Health. It is constantly bombarding the poor and cramped Palestinian territory where it has been besieging for more than of a year the approximately 2.4 million inhabitants, the vast majority of whom were displaced. On Monday, new strikes targeted the territory, according to witnesses. – “This is not enough” – According to the head of Unrwa, Philippe Lazzarini, the daily average number of trucks authorized by Israel to enter Gaza has fallen at 30 in October: “This is not enough to meet the needs of more than 2 million people, many of whom are hungry and sick and living in desperate conditions.”On Israel's northern border, new Israeli air raids have been carried out in southern Lebanon, where Israeli troops have also been engaged since September 30 in a ground offensive. From September 23, Israel intensified its strikes against Hezbollah, saying it wanted to neutralize this movement in the southern border regions. and move its fighters north of the Litani River, located around thirty km from the Israeli border. Objective: the return of 60,000 inhabitants in northern Israel, displaced by Hezbollah fire. At least 1,940 people have been killed since September 23 in Lebanon, according to an AFP count based on official data.bur/ tp/bfi
