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SvennoJ on 30 January 2024
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Next set of lies starts to unravel

US seeking ‘more information’ from Israel on UNRWA allegations

The US has “reached out to the Government of Israel to seek more information” about allegations Israel made against 12 staff members of UNRWA, Washington’s ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, has told reporters. While Thomas-Greenfield said, “I’m not going to get ahead” of an investigation launched by the UN, she also said the US would not restore funding until UNRWA made “fundamental changes”.

Thomas-Greenfield’s comments on Tuesday come after questions have arisen over whether Israel changed details about how it obtained information about the 12 UNRWA employees it says were involved in the October 7 attacks on Israel.

On Saturday, the US news outlet Axios quoted an Israeli official who said that “a lot of the intelligence is a result of interrogations of militants who were arrested during the October 7 attack”. However, on Sunday, The New York Times – which says it obtained a “dossier” on the Israeli allegations – reported that the information had been obtained through surveillance.

Israeli forces have detained an unknown number of people in Gaza – including UN workers – since October 7. Palestinians released from detention say they were beaten, verbally abused, undressed and deprived of sleep during Israeli interrogations.


UN has been degraded into stating the obvious, hands tied

UN envoy calls out ‘double standard’ in suspending UNRWA funds

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has said that governments suspending funds to the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) represents “double standards” when they continue to support Israel, whose actions “plausibly constitute” genocide.

About a dozen mostly Western countries have suspended funding to UNRWA while they await the outcome of an investigation into allegations that 12 former staff members participated in the October 7 attacks on Israel.

UN aid chief warns of ‘collapse’ in Gaza humanitarian relief over UNRWA

Martin Griffiths, the UN’s undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, has warned that the defunding of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency “would result in the collapse” of the aid system in the Gaza Strip.

The withdrawal of funds from UNRWA – which several mostly Western countries have announced – was “perilous”, Griffith said, and would have “far-reaching consequences” in the occupied Palestinian territories and the region. “The world cannot abandon the people of Gaza”, Griffiths said in a joint statement with other humanitarian organisation leaders on Tuesday.

‘Extrajudicial execution’ of 3 Palestinians in hospital ‘unlawful’: UN

The “unlawful killing of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank” by Israeli forces must “immediately end”, the UN’s human rights office said. Documenting an increasing number of unlawful killings in the occupied West Bank since October 7, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said Israel must also “provide accountability for all unlawful use of force” perpetrated by its forces.

The UN issued its strongly-worded statement in the aftermath of what it described as the “planned extrajudicial execution” of three Palestinian men inside Ibn Sina Hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday. According to the UN, undercover Israelis “killed an 18-year-old as he lay in his hospital bed”, where he was “half-paralysed” and receiving treatment following an Israeli air strike in October. The Israelis also killed the patient’s brother, aged 23, and a 27-year-old man.

The UN reminded Israel in the statement that under international law, “firearms may only be used when strictly necessary and to prevent an imminent threat to life or serious injury”. Otherwise, it is unlawful.

Another night of raids in the West Bank is underway

Our Al Jazeera Arabic colleagues and local media are reporting raids in the city of Nablus and in the Askar refugee camp east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. Israeli forces accompanied by bulldozers have entered the city sparking confrontations with Palestinian resistance groups, the Wafa news agency reports. Raids and arrests have been reported elsewhere in the occupied West Bank in the following locations:

  • The city of Qalqilya
  • The town of Anata, the Al-Salam suburb, and the Qalandiya camp near occupied East Jerusalem
  • The town of Jaba, south of Jenin
  • The village of Sinjil, north of Ramallah
  • A man and his two sons have been arrested in the village of Ain Arik, west of Ramallah
  • A man has been arrested in the town of Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem
  • A man has been arrested in Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem

More people told to evacuate

Israel orders 88,000 displaced Palestinians to evacuate Gaza City: UN

Israel has repeated new evacuation orders for neighbourhoods in western Gaza City where 88,000 Palestinians had been living in shelters, the UN humanitarian agency (OCHA) has said. The area, which included the Ash Shati Refugee camp, was home to almost 300,000 Palestinians before October 7, OCHA added in its daily update for Monday.

“The new order covered an area of 12.43 sq km, which amounts to 3.4 percent of the total area of the Gaza Strip,” OCHA added. Some “41 per cent of the Gaza Strip have been placed under such orders” since Israel began issuing evacuation deadlines on December 1, OCHA added.

The residents of Gaza City’s west were told to flee south, despite large numbers of Palestinians leaving Khan Younis in recent days and dangerously overcrowded conditions in Rafah.


An Israeli tank looks over displaced Palestinians as they flee Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday