UNRWA ‘a target’ for what it represents since assault on Gaza began
Ibrahim Fraihat, an associate professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has been “a target by the Israeli government” since the war on Gaza was launched.
His comments came after Wednesday’s attack on the UN-run al-Jaouni school, which killed 18 Palestinians, among them six UN staff members.
The UNRWA flag on the school, he said, made it a target instead of protecting it from Israeli bombardment.
“From the beginning of this genocide … [UNRWA] has been a target by the Israeli government for what it represents,” Fraihat said.
“UNRWA represents … the right of return for the Palestinian refugees who were kicked out of their homes in 1948. So UNRWA represents a cause – a right of return for refugees – and this is what Israel has been trying to eliminate.”
The agency has come under attack numerous times and has lost more than 220 of its staff in various attacks since October 7.
UNRWA is the most “knowledgeable of the situation in Gaza”, and has been working with refugees in the enclave for decades, making it “very indispensable”, Fraihat said.
“It has a system of operations that extends all over Gaza that makes humanitarian deliveries essential and indispensable – no one, no international organisations … can come into Gaza and substitute UNRWA.”
Israel defends attack on UN shelter; alleges ‘terrorist operatives’ killed
Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Nadav Shoshani says UNRWA hasn’t provided the names of its workers killed in Wednesday’s air strikes “despite repeated requests”.
Shoshani said a military inquiry found “a significant number of the names [of the dead] that have appeared in the media and on social networks are Hamas terrorist operatives”.
In response, UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma said the agency was “not aware of any such requests”, that it provided Israel each year with a list of its staff, and it “called repeatedly” on Israel and Palestinian armed groups “to never use civilian facilities for military or fighting purposes”.
She said the agency is “not in a position to determine” if the school had been used by Hamas for military purposes, but UNRWA has “repeatedly called for independent investigations” into “these very serious claims”.
Without providing evidence, Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said the school was “no longer a school” and had become “a legitimate target” as it was used by Hamas to launch attacks. The school currently shelters about 12,000 war-displaced Palestinian civilians.
No evidence that slain UN staffers are Hamas members: UN
The spokesman for the UN secretary-general says he’s shocked, outraged and condemns this attack that killed six UNRWA employees – now raising the death toll for the number of UNRWA staff members killed in Gaza by Israel to 220 in the last 11 months.
The secretary general says this UN school had been turned into a shelter where desperate Palestinians were receiving food, water and medical aid – anything they needed to continue to survive this ongoing onslaught by Israel in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Israel says some of the UNRWA employees were part of Hamas. We asked the spokesperson about this, and he said there’s no evidence of this whatsoever. Israel is also saying it targeted a “Hamas command and control centre”. The spokesperson said the UN is calling for an investigation into this, but as of right now, it has no evidence this is indeed the case.
Normally in a situation like this, the secretary-general might pick up the phone and call Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the situation. But both men have spoken zero times in the last 11 months. We’re told by the UN that Netanyahu is not accepting any calls from the secretary-general.
