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More countries hopped on the UNWRA smear campaign bandwagon, Austria, Iceland, Romania and Estonia joined the USA, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, Finland, Australia, Japan and the European Union is awaiting further details. (No funding until end of Februari for now)
https://unwatch.org/updated-list-of-countries-suspending-unwra-funding/
Here’s why Israel wants to dismantle the UN’s Palestinian agency
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/29/middleeast/unrwa-funding-israel-war-mime-intl
Israel has alleged that some of the staff of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) were involved in Hamas’ October 7 attack. The main aid agency in Gaza fired several employees in response. But beyond the allegations of recent days, Israel has longstanding issues with UNRWA, accusing it of aiding Hamas and calling for it to be entirely dismantled.
In 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to dissolve UNRWA and merge it with the main UN refugee agency, the UNHCR. More recently, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has suggested that Israel will seek to stop the UN agency from operating in post-war Gaza, saying it “will not be a part of the day after." "We have been warning for years,” Katz said. “UNRWA perpetuates the refugee issue, obstructs peace, and serves as a civilian arm of Hamas in Gaza.”
UNRWA has repeatedly denied Israeli allegations that its aid is being diverted to Hamas, and that it teaches hatred in its schools, and has questioned “the motivation of those who make such claims, through large advocacy campaigns.” It has condemned the October 7 attack as “abhorrent.” The threat to remove UNRWA from the besieged Gaza Strip has caused UN officials and those who rely on the agency to sound the alarm.
“Israel doesn’t see UNRWA as something which is conducive to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” said Yuval Shany, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s faculty of law. Israel instead views the agency as “a mechanism that perpetuates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he told CNN, “And specifically perpetuates the conflict with regards to the right to return, by designating refugees and their descendants from 1948… as refugees.”
The right of return refers to the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to their ancestral homes in what is now Israel, which was recognized by the 1948 UN General Assembly Resolution 194. The fate of refugees is one of the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The only way Israel sees as ending the conflict is with ethnic cleansing or genocide, leave or die.
I watched "Born in Gaza" last night on Netflix https://www.netflix.com/title/81077863
That was filmed shortly after the 2014 war
https://www.unrwa.org/2014-gaza-conflict
"During the 50 days of hostilities lasting from 8 July until 26 August 2014, 2,251 Palestinians were killed; 1,462 of them are believed to be civilians, including 551 children and 299 women.66 Israeli soldiers and five civilians, including one child, were also killed."
The reason the refugees are stuck in UNWRA shelters is because Israel keeps bombing Gaza.
It's a shame Bernie Sanders is 82 already, he's one of the few voices of reason in US politics
‘What’s happening in Gaza is unspeakable’: Bernie Sanders
The progressive US senator says Washington is “complicit” in the “nightmare” unfolding in Gaza. “It’s time for the US to stop ASKING Israel to do the right thing. We must TELL them: unless they change course, they will lose our support,” Sanders wrote in a social media post.
The administration of US President Joe Biden has argued that it is urging the Israeli government to minimise civilian casualties and to allow more aid into Gaza, but US officials have ruled out halting or conditioning aid to Israel.
In contrast, Washington was quick to suspend aid to UNRWA after unconfirmed allegations that some individuals who work for the UN agency participated in Hamas’s October 7 attack.
UNRWA funding cuts threaten Palestinian lives in Gaza and region: NGOs
Twenty NGOs have expressed “concern and outrage” that some of the largest donors have “united to suspend funding for UNRWA, the main aid provider for millions of Palestinians in Gaza and the region”. The NGOs include the Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam, Save the Children and War Child Alliance.
“With approximately over one million displaced Palestinians taking shelter in or around 154 UNRWA shelters, the agency and aid organisations have continued to work in near impossible circumstances to provide food, vaccinations, and freshwater,” the groups said in a statement. “The countries suspending funds risk further depriving Palestinians in the region of essential food, water, medical assistance and supplies, education and protection.”
Israeli forces arrest Palestinians after storming UN-run shelter in Gaza City
In the past few hours, we’ve been hearing that Israeli military forces had stormed one of the UN-run shelters in Gaza City in the central neighbourhood of Remal. They surrounded the vicinity and then stormed it, arresting a number of Palestinian evacuees who were taking shelter inside.
There’s no official confirmation of any killings of Palestinians in these ongoing raids. Previously in similar occasions, Israeli forces have stormed a number of UN shelters, taken a number of men for investigation in different areas across the Gaza Strip. Some of them have been killed, others released after long weeks of torture. The situation is completely chaotic as Israeli forces have been targeting the central areas of Gaza City within the past few hours. The groups urged donor states to reaffirm support for the work that UNRWA and its partners do to help Palestinians survive what they called one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of our times.
I doubt anything will come from this
Broad framework for a potential hostage release and ceasefire is being presented to Hamas, official says
A broad framework for a hostage release and potential ceasefire was agreed to among negotiators in Paris this weekend, according to an official familiar with the talks. While there is a basic framework that negotiators feel they can move forward with, the “details are going to be very difficult” to work out, the official said. Even though negotiators came to terms on the broad strokes, the office of Israel’s prime minister indicated Monday that there are concerns about “conditions that are not acceptable.” It denied reports that Israel had agreed to a new hostage deal.
Egyptian intelligence today delivered the framework to Hamas in Rafah, the official said. The framework would call for the first phase of civilian hostage releases to take place over a 6-week pause with three Palestinian prisoners held by Israel released for each civilian hostage returned from Gaza. That ratio would be expected to go up for IDF soldiers and a longer pause is possible beyond the six weeks for the later phases.
The framework is a melding of different proposals from Israel, Hamas, Qatar and Egypt, along with additional ideas from the United States. The proposals differed on the length of the pause and ratios for swapping prisoners and hostages.
Hamas has repeatedly rejected a pause and wants a full ceasefire, the Israeli government has also rejected a pause and wants to finish off Gaza. Adjusting the length of the pause or ratios of hostages vs prisoners isn't going to move either side on the fundamental differences. There's still communication at least.
