UNRWA still operational, but situation ‘highly uncertain’ due to Israeli bans
Spokesperson Jonathan Fowler says the clinics and schools run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees continue to operate in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, but the situation remains “highly uncertain” due to two Israeli laws effectively banning UNRWA.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, he said the first law bans UNRWA’s operations “on what Israel deems to be its sovereign territory – here we’re talking about East Jerusalem which, of course, in the eyes of international law, the International Court of Justice and so on is actually an occupied territory”.
Fowler added that the second law bans all contact between Israeli officials and UNRWA. “This poses immense potential problems,” he warned, citing the Israeli army’s demolition of housing blocks in Jenin as an example.
“Normally, we would know that a military operation is coming and we’d be able to make sure that the schoolchildren are safe but we have no possibility of coordination. “We were not informed in advance so there is always a risk to the population and the population that we cater to – be that patients or be that school children.”
In East Jerusalem, UNRWA provides healthcare for 70,000 people who are among the most vulnerable members of society, Fowler said.
“These are people with no affordable healthcare alternatives.”
More medical evacuations out of Gaza
The current agreement permits the daily evacuation of 50 patients, each accompanied by up to three escorts.
During the past 48 hours, more than 70 Palestinians have been allowed to evacuate outside of Gaza to receive treatment in Egyptian hospitals – far fewer than what was expected based on the terms of the agreement.
Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) has managed to evacuate 39 patients with 55 caregivers.
The WHO estimates that between 12,000 and 14,000 wounded people and patients are in desperate need of urgent medical evacuation.
But given the current rate of 50 evacuations per day, if met, the process would take months to address the needs of the critical cases. These have been desperately waiting for months without proper healthcare and essential medical services in Gaza’s barely functioning hospitals, which have been quite overwhelmed with different sorts of injuries and working under severe humanitarian and medical conditions.
The grim reality is that many patients have succumbed to their wounds and passed away due to the delay in evacuations.
This is the first time the Rafah crossing has opened in nine months, and what has been taking place now on the ground is a glimmer of hope for the families and the wounded and patients to help them start the journey of recovery.
Access to water critical for northern Gaza returnees
We have been seeing people going to their neighbourhoods and finding their houses completely collapsed to the ground.
There are no air attacks but there are endless queues for bread, at community kitchens, and also for water. The biggest struggle for Palestinians in the north now is zero access to water. We have also been seeing UNRWA distributing wheat, flour and food parcels but Palestinians say all they want right now is access to water.
People are trying to fix whatever they can in their houses, with some also reopening their stores. Meanwhile, bulldozers and municipality workers have been trying to open the roads because what the Israeli forces left in Gaza City, and the north as a whole, can only be described as a complete disaster.
There’s huge destruction. Every single aspect of life has been wiped out, there’s zero infrastructure and there’s rubble everywhere. The streets are very dusty and Palestinians do not know from where to start.
We have been seeing people fixing, cleaning, collecting glass and whatever else they can collect from under the rubble.
But we also see Palestinians being very happy to have returned home despite the fact that there’s no home left. Still, they are very happy that they are not displaced in different areas other than their houses across the Gaza Strip.
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