Israel officially informed the United Nations on Monday of the cancellation of the agreement with the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), passed last week by the Israeli Parliament, according to a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. .
“On the instructions of Foreign Minister Israel Katz, the Foreign Ministry notified the UN of the cancellation of the agreement between the State of Israel and UNRWA (the UN agency for Palestinian refugees) », notes the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Last week, Israeli MPs decided to ban the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees within 90 days, while new operations in the Gaza Strip threaten the lives of tens of thousands of civilians. The UN immediately spoke of “devastating consequences” for the Palestinians. For its part, UNRWA denounced a “scandalous” measure against it, even though it is the main actor in humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip.
This text should limit humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip. In fact, it prohibits Israeli officials from working with UNRWA and its employees. In fact, this new legislation will make UNRWA's work in Gaza and the West Bank almost impossible: “Coordination with the Israeli authorities will be blocked and entry permits into the occupied territories refused,” UNRWA denounced.
Backbone of aid to Gaza
But according to Israel, which has been very critical of this organization for a long time, it is accused by the government of having actively participated in the attacks of October 7, 2023. “There is a deep link between the terrorist organization (Hamas) and the Unrwa, and Israel cannot tolerate it,” insisted Yuli Edelstein, one of the deputies behind the text. Several investigations have highlighted “problems linked to neutrality” at UNRWA. One of them determined that nine employees “may have been involved” in the October 7 attack, before being fired in August. Earlier this year, 10 other employees were fired for the same reasons.
However, an independent international audit, led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, qualified the accusations of massive infiltration, indicating that the Jewish state had to “provide proof” of these allegations even if it recognized a possible misdirection of a few individuals. But in any case this could not lead to the closure of this agency which remains “irreplaceable and essential”.
In the Gaza Strip, UNRWA has 58 official refugee camps and operates more than 700 schools for more than 540,000 students. It also operates 141 primary health care facilities, with nearly seven million patient visits each year, and provides food assistance to 1.8 million people. UNRWA was considered the “backbone” of aid to Gaza.
“Without UNRWA, food aid distributions, as well as access to health care and shelter for most of Gaza's population, would cease. Without Unrwa, access to education for hundreds of thousands of children would be compromised, and with it the future of a generation,” lamented Philippe Lazzarini, head of Unrwa.
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