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UN members must defend agency against Israel ban: UNRWA chief
The UN’s aid agency for Palestinian refugees is facing its “darkest hour”, its chief says as he implores member states to defend it against an Israeli ban. “Without intervention by member states, UNRWA will collapse, plunging millions of Palestinians into chaos,” Philippe Lazzarini told the UN General Assembly.
Lazzarini called for the UN – which created UNRWA in 1949 – to prevent implementation of the Israeli ban.
Not looking good for UNWRA with Trump in power. The US halted funding until 2025, Trump will make it indefinite.
UNGA president says Israel’s UNRWA ban ‘intolerable affront’
Philemon Yang, the president of the UN General Assembly, has expressed “deep alarm” at two Israeli laws which “if implemented, would prevent UNRWA from undertaking its essential work”.
“This decision constitutes an intolerable affront to the authority of the General Assembly, to international law and, most importantly, to the human dignity of innocent Palestinian civilians,” said Yang, who is also the former prime minister of Cameroon, at a meeting he called after Israel’s parliament passed two bills banning UNRWA last week.
UNRWA was created by the UN General Assembly on December 8, 1949, to provide basic support including food, healthcare and education to tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees.
Attacks on UNWRA ‘more proof of Israel’s genocide in Gaza’
Palestine’s envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, has addressed a meeting of the UN General Assembly over Israel’s plan to ban the UN’s aid agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
Here are the major talking points from his speech:
- Israel’s “open assault against” UNRWA is “more proof of Israel’s genocide in Gaza” including by attacking the people who try to help Palestinians survive.
- Banning UNRWA is “part of the assault on Palestine refugees to strip them of their refugee status and deny them their rights”.
- UNRWA staff are “risking their lives as we speak to uphold its sacred mandate, a mandate given by this General Assembly for 75 years”.
- “UNRWA deserves the international community’s full support. Nothing that has happened, no distortions or smears or threats have changed that, nor should they”.
Palestinians ‘starving while the world watches’
UN humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya has warned that Palestinian civilians in Gaza are “starving while the world watches on”. “For the past month, North Gaza has been under a near-total brutal siege,” Msuya said in a social media post.
“Israeli military operations have left Palestinians without the essentials to survive,” she said, adding “these atrocities must stop.”
That's 2 weeks old, no improvement since
