UNRWA chief: UN staff facing growing restrictions in Gaza

The Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said on Tuesday that humanitarian workers are facing increasing restrictions when reporting atrocities in the Gaza Strip.

Lazzarini noted that the Israeli authorities are increasingly refusing to renew visas for UN staff, creating a serious obstacle to ongoing humanitarian work and field monitoring.

“All UNRWA international staff have not been granted visas for nearly six months now,” he noted.

The UNRWA chief added that the Israeli authorities have personally barred him from entering Gaza since March 2024. This came shortly after a ruling by the International Court of Justice regarding the West Bank, in what he described as an escalation of restrictions on the work of the United Nations and its representatives in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Concluding his statement, Lazzarini expressed alarm, saying: “Coupled with the ongoing ban of international media to enter Gaza, these visa denials are deepening the spread of dis-information & increasing de-humanization of the people in Gaza.”

Since 7 October 2023, Israel — with US support — has been committing acts of genocide in Gaza, including killing, starvation, destruction and forced displacement, while ignoring international calls and ICJ orders to stop.

The genocide has resulted in over 200,000 Palestinians killed or wounded, most of them women and children, with more than 11,000 missing. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, many have died from starvation — including children — and large-scale destruction has occurred across the Strip.