United Nations | Gaza Crisis: Calls for Increased Support to UNRWA - UN Chief | United Nations @unitednations | Uploaded September 2024 | Updated October 2024, 6 days ago.
Secretary-General António Guterres today (26 Sep) said people in Gaza are “existing, not living,” and if “there is any outpost of hope in this hellscape,” it is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Addressing a Ministerial level meeting to discuss the situation of the agency, Guterres said, “attempts to evict UNRWA from its headquarters in East Jerusalem continue,” while on the political level, there are “systematic disinformation campaigns to discredit the agency's life-long work.”
He noted that “draft legislation in the Israeli parliament seeks to label the agency a terrorist organisation and to make any activity by UNRWA on Israel territory Illegal.”
UNRWA’s Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini told the meeting that “Palestinians are no stranger to loss, but to be dispossessed from education, which has always been a source of tremendous pride, is new.”
He said, “we cannot afford to lose an entire generation and sow the seeds for future hatred and extremism.”
Disturbingly, Lazzarini continued, “senior Israeli officials have described destroying UNRWA as a war goal.”
He described efforts to evict the agency from East Jerusalem, and to revoke its privileges and immunities, and designate it as a terrorist organisation, which he said is “an unconscionable action by a member state against a UN entity mandated by the General Assembly.”
Jordan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ayman Aṣ-ṣafadī, Co-Chair of today’s meeting, said, “the indispensability of UNRWA cannot be questioned, nor can the fact that UNRWA cannot be replaced, for doing that is questioning the right of Palestinian children to food, to shelter, to education and to hope.”
Aṣ-ṣafadī said, “UNRWA schools, most of them were decimated. Those that still stand are sheltering Palestinians, children, women who are killed by Israeli bombs and starved by Israeli siege, denying them water, food, medicine.”
He said, “we need UNRWA because nobody can help the Palestinians in Gaza more than UNRWA now.”
The other Co-Chair, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden Maria Malmer Stenergard, said, “the underfunding of UNRWA remains deeply concerning” and while she welcomed “generous contributions” from new and recurring donors “more steps must be taken towards a sufficient, predictable and sustainable funding for the agency, including by broadening the donor base.”
Today’s meeting emphasized UNRWA’s indispensable and irreplaceable role in the lives of Palestinian refugees, particularly in Gaza, and seeked to explore ways to bolster political and financial support for the agency.
Secretary-General António Guterres today (26 Sep) said people in Gaza are “existing, not living,” and if “there is any outpost of hope in this hellscape,” it is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Addressing a Ministerial level meeting to discuss the situation of the agency, Guterres said, “attempts to evict UNRWA from its headquarters in East Jerusalem continue,” while on the political level, there are “systematic disinformation campaigns to discredit the agency's life-long work.”
He noted that “draft legislation in the Israeli parliament seeks to label the agency a terrorist organisation and to make any activity by UNRWA on Israel territory Illegal.”
UNRWA’s Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini told the meeting that “Palestinians are no stranger to loss, but to be dispossessed from education, which has always been a source of tremendous pride, is new.”
He said, “we cannot afford to lose an entire generation and sow the seeds for future hatred and extremism.”
Disturbingly, Lazzarini continued, “senior Israeli officials have described destroying UNRWA as a war goal.”
He described efforts to evict the agency from East Jerusalem, and to revoke its privileges and immunities, and designate it as a terrorist organisation, which he said is “an unconscionable action by a member state against a UN entity mandated by the General Assembly.”
Jordan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ayman Aṣ-ṣafadī, Co-Chair of today’s meeting, said, “the indispensability of UNRWA cannot be questioned, nor can the fact that UNRWA cannot be replaced, for doing that is questioning the right of Palestinian children to food, to shelter, to education and to hope.”
Aṣ-ṣafadī said, “UNRWA schools, most of them were decimated. Those that still stand are sheltering Palestinians, children, women who are killed by Israeli bombs and starved by Israeli siege, denying them water, food, medicine.”
He said, “we need UNRWA because nobody can help the Palestinians in Gaza more than UNRWA now.”
The other Co-Chair, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden Maria Malmer Stenergard, said, “the underfunding of UNRWA remains deeply concerning” and while she welcomed “generous contributions” from new and recurring donors “more steps must be taken towards a sufficient, predictable and sustainable funding for the agency, including by broadening the donor base.”
Today’s meeting emphasized UNRWA’s indispensable and irreplaceable role in the lives of Palestinian refugees, particularly in Gaza, and seeked to explore ways to bolster political and financial support for the agency.
