The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) considers it “good news” that more humanitarian aid arrived in Gaza during April than in the previous months of the current war. Despite everything, the organization denounces that this increase is not enough to correct the trend that leads the local population towards famine, as explained this Tuesday by the commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini, during an appearance before the media from Geneva (Switzerland). . Israel’s financial problems and accusations of collaborating with Hamas, which motivated the withdrawal of funding from several countries, hit the agency in the middle of the war, but Lazzarini highlights as positive that there are countries like Iraq, Algeria or Kuwait that, driven by “solidarity” with the Palestinians, have become donors for the first time. In addition, the organization has received 115 million dollars (about 107 million euros) in donations from the private sector. Many of the donors who withdrew at the beginning of the year have returned, like Spain, but there is still a hole of 267 million dollars, acknowledges the head of UNRWA.
The reality of the conflict on the ground prevents Lazzarini from being too optimistic. Israeli occupation troops have not allowed a single UNRWA convoy to reach aid from the south of the enclave to the north, where the situation is most pressing. “They are systematically denied passage,” Lazzarini denounced. What his staff does in that area is help distribute the water and food that arrive through other shipments.
In this sense, those responsible for the agency are waiting for the authorities of the Jewish State to open the Erez border crossing in that northern area, the most direct from the Israeli port of Ashkelon, whose entry into operation was announced a month ago. . The commissioner general insists that the land route is the most “efficient, fast and safe” to supply Gaza in the face of aid drops from the air or the pontoon that the United States is building on the coast to unload ships arriving from the maritime corridor from Cyprus. This infrastructure could be available in a week, the head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, said this Tuesday.
Rafah invasion “with or without agreement”
Although hunger hits harder in the north than in the south, it is in the southern area where uncertainty is most open regarding a possible land invasion by the Israeli army. “We will enter Rafah and eliminate the Hamas battalions there, with or without an agreement,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this Tuesday, after meeting with some relatives of the hostages who remain captive in the Strip. The leader thus lowered the expectations raised after the latest contacts, which indicated that Israel was going to prioritize the ceasefire agreement and the release of the captives to that operation in Rafah.
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Around 1.5 million people, the vast majority of the population of the Strip, take refuge there, imprisoned by the Egyptian border and waiting for that possible military order. This situation hits them on a daily basis, Lazzarini stated, with cases of continuous traumatic stress. Despite the Israeli plan to evacuate them, people have not yet been asked to leave, but “there is a feeling that if there is no ceasefire agreement this week, it could happen at any time.”
Only four countries, according to Lazzarini, keep the tap on their donations to UNRWA closed after the accusations without evidence launched by Israel for the possible participation of its employees in the attacks of October 7. But among them, in addition to the United Kingdom, Austria and Switzerland, is the main financial pillar of the agency, which is the United States, whose blockade has been signed by the Administration of President Joe Biden, at least until March 2025. The suspension in In January, the financing by 16 member states amounted to about 450 million dollars, of which 267 are still pending recovery today. More than half, around 180, are contributed by the Americans.
The Israeli accusations
Lazzarini has once again defended the role of UNRWA in the face of accusations from Israel that it does not do enough to facilitate the distribution of food to Gazans. The head of the agency has denounced the obstacles involved in the controls, the obligation to load and unload trucks or the delays that occur when the Israeli military closes the Kerem Shalom crossing to take or return detainees from the Strip.
Israel faces serious accusations over its treatment of those arrested in Gaza. At least 27 have already died in detention centers during the conflict, according to the newspaper reported two months ago Haaretz. More than a thousand, some UNRWA employees themselves, have been returned to the Strip through Kerem Shalom, the same crossing through which some of the aid trucks enter, and have given testimony to the UN agency.
According to Lazzarini, they are stripped naked, loaded onto trucks with their eyes covered, subjected to inhumane treatment while held incommunicado, and subjected to torture such as dog attacks, beatings, or having their heads submerged in water to simulate drowning. Furthermore, since they are not allowed access to the bathroom, they put diapers on them, he added. The agency’s employees were pressured to recognize political affiliations that compromised the good name of the organization, its top official added. One of those detained by Israel, a journalist who spent more than a month in a detention center, offered a similar story to Morning Express.
During this war, 182 UNRWA workers have died in Gaza and 160 of the agency’s headquarters have been attacked, where another 400 people have died, according to Lazzarini. He believes that beyond those attacks, the goal of Israel’s campaign against the agency is to strip Palestinians of their refugee status. UNRWA has been providing assistance for 75 years in Palestine (Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem) and Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. The commissioner general has insisted that Israel continues to present no conclusive evidence of the involvement of any of the agency’s 13,000 Gaza workers in the October 7 attack or their membership in the armed wings of Hamas or Islamic Jihad.
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