The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip has “persistent problems with political neutrality”, but Israel has yet to provide “proof” that its members are linked to “terrorist organizations”, points out, this Monday, April 22, a report submitted to the head of the United Nations.
“UNRWA remains crucial in providing lifesaving humanitarian assistance and essential social services, including health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank,” the group said. in a highly anticipated report of around fifty pages.
“UNRWA is irreplaceable and essential for the human and economic development of the Palestinians. Furthermore, many consider that UNRWA is a humanitarian lifeline,” writes the mission led by the former head of French diplomacy. “But despite this solid framework, problems linked to neutrality persist,” she notes.
“Threat”
These are “cases of staff employees publicly expressing their political opinions, school books with problematic content coming from the host country and used in certain UNRWA schools, politicized trade unionists making threats against the management of the “UNRWA and disrupting humanitarian operations,” according to the independent group.
The agency, which has more than 30,000 employees in the region (Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria), is accused by Israel of employing “more than 400 terrorists” in Gaza. And 12 of its employees are accused by the Israelis of having been directly involved in the unprecedented attack of October 7 carried out by Hamas on Israeli soil, which left 1,160 dead, mainly civilians, according to a report from the AFP established from official data. Accusations which led to the suspension of funding by certain donor countries, some of which have since resumed.
“Based on a March 2024 list containing Palestinian identity numbers, Israel has publicly claimed that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations. However, Israel has yet to provide any the evidence,” the group warns in its report. Especially since UNRWA, created by the UN General Assembly in 1949, “is the backbone of humanitarian operations” in Gaza, its boss Philippe Lazzarini repeated last week to the Security Council, denouncing a “insidious” campaign to shut down its operations. “Dismantling UNRWA will have lasting repercussions,” he warned, with the consequence in particular of “aggravating the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and accelerating the onset of famine”. Famine already threatens the northern Palestinian territory, where more than 34,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed since the start of the Israeli offensive, according to the Hamas health ministry.