A man-made famine is “tightening its grip” across the Gaza Strip, the head of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, warned on Wednesday as he accused Israel of blocking aid deliveries and seeking to end UNRWA’s activities in the enclave, Reuters reports.
“Today, an insidious campaign to end UNRWA’s operations is underway, with serious implications for international peace and security,” UNRWA Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, told the 15-member UN Security Council.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Since war erupted six months ago between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, top UN officials have described UNRWA as the backbone of aid operations.
“Across Gaza, a man-made famine is tightening its grip,” Lazzarini said. “In the north, infants and young children have begun to die of malnutrition and dehydration. Across the border, food and clean water wait. But UNRWA is denied permission to deliver this aid and save lives.”
READ: UN Agency says staff, other Gaza detainees subjected to ill-treatment
Israel has long complained about UNRWA and, in January, accused a dozen of its 13,000 staff in Gaza of being involved in a 7 October Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people. Israel is retaliating against in Gaza and has killed more than 33,000 people, according to Gaza Health Authorities.
Lazzarini fired the accused staff and an internal UN inquiry is underway into allegations. A separate UNRWA report, dated February, said some staff detained by Israel reported being pressured by Israeli authorities into falsely stating that UNRWA has Hamas links and that staff took part in the 7 October attacks.
An independent review of UNRWA’s ability to ensure neutrality is also due to be concluded this month.
Israel has repeatedly equated UNRWA staff with Hamas members in efforts to discredit them, providing no proof of the claims, while lobbying hard to have UNRWA closed, as it is the only UN agency to have a specific mandate to look after the basic needs of Palestinian refugees. If the Agency no longer exists, argues Israel, then the refugee issue must no longer exist, and the legitimate right for Palestinian refugees to return to their land will be unnecessary. Israel has denied that right of return since the late 1940s, even though its own membership of the UN was made conditional upon Palestinian refugees being allowed to return to their homes and land.
‘Indispensable role’
Seated next to Lazzarini in the Security Council, Israel’s UN Ambassador, Gilad Erdan, on Wednesday accused UNRWA of being “the world’s biggest advocate for a one state solution – a Palestinian State, from the river to the sea.”
“UNRWA’s goal is not aid or real education. In practice, UNRWA is creating a sea of Palestinian refugees, millions of them, indoctrinated to believe that Israel belongs to them,” Erdan told the Council. “Israel cannot and will not allow UNRWA to continue in Gaza as it did in the past.”
UNRWA was created in 1949 by the UN General Assembly to help Palestinian refugees following a war surrounding the founding of Israel, when 700,000 Palestinians were displaced. Many fled to Gaza.
Lazzarini said UNRWA is facing a campaign to push it out.
“In Gaza, the government of Israel seeks to end UNRWA’s activities. The Agency’s requests to deliver aid to the north are repeatedly denied. Our staff is barred from coordination meetings between Israel and humanitarian actors,” he said.
“Worse, UNRWA premises and staff have been targeted since the beginning of the war. 178 UNRWA personnel have been killed,” Lazzarini said.
UNRWA said in a report published earlier on Wednesday that some of its staff members and other people detained by Israeli forces in Gaza were subjected to ill-treatment, including severe beatings and being forced to strip naked.
Israel ally, the United States, recognises UNRWA’s “indispensable role” in delivering aid in Gaza and called for the “lifting of onerous restrictions on its work,” deputy US Ambassador to the UN, Robert Wood, told the Security Council.
“The United States is gravely concerned about dire food insecurity, and the very real risk of imminent famine. UNRWA is critical to averting this,” said Wood.
READ: Killing humanitarian workers as a strategy: Israel’s endgame in Gaza