The head of the U.N. agency that assists Palestinian refugees has dismissed calls for it to be disbanded and says that UNRWA is the best positioned agency to respond to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“I have talked with the member states about all these calls for UNRWA to be dismantled, to be terminated and I have warned about the impact. I have said that these calls are short-sighted,” said Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of UNRWA.
Major donors, including the United States have suspended financial aid to UNRWA after allegations that 12 of the agency’s Palestinian staff participated in Hamas’ October massacre in Israel.
“The impact is not just on the short term. It is not just weakening our collective ability to respond to humanitarian crises at this time … but also during what I would describe as the transition phase; the long days before the end of active military hostilities,” Lazzarini said.
He told journalists in Geneva Tuesday that he spent two hours briefing member states about the situation in Rafah, which he described as “deeply, deeply concerning,” noting that Palestinians crammed into this small, overcrowded space were fearful and anxious about Israel mounting a large-scale military operation in the region.
“If this military operation is taking place, the question is where will the civilians go,” he said. “There is absolutely no safe place in Rafah anymore and the fear is that the number of civilians killed and injured might again significantly increase in a conflict where more than 100,000 people already have been either killed, injured or are missing.”
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, reports that intense Israeli bombardment from air, land and sea continues across much of the Gaza Strip and that “increased airstrikes in Rafah have heightened concerns of an escalation in the most southerly city in Gaza.”
Before the brutal Hamas terror attack on Israel October 7, in which 1,200 people were killed and 240 taken hostage, Rafah had a population of 200,000. Israel’s ferocious onslaught of Gaza following Hamas’ horrific attack has increased the number of people in Rafah to well over a million.
Lazzarini warns an attack on Rafah by Israel would be “the largest military offensive in the middle of a sea of displaced people. If they are asked to move, the question is where to move.”
“Over a 20-kilometer stretch, you see only plastic makeshift shelters where hundreds of thousands of people are already living,” he said.
Were Israel to attack Rafah, he said the Palestinian population will be faced with more suffering, misery, and deprivation of basic survival needs. He said the experience and ability of UNRWA to provide humanitarian assistance to this beleaguered population is not only needed, but irreplaceable.
“We have half a million girls and boys deeply traumatized that we urgently need to bring back to an educational system,” he said.
“This will not be provided by an emerging local administration. There is absolutely no other U.N. agency or INGOs which have been tasked over the last few decades to provide government-like services like education to hundreds of thousands of children.
“And if we want to give a chance to any future transition to succeed, we need also to make sure that the international community has the tools and one of the tools is UNRWA,” he said.
Meirav Eilon Shahar, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said that Israel remains committed to collaborating with partners to alleviate the suffering and prevent deterioration in the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
“Israel is at war with the terrorist organization Hamas. … Our fight is with Hamas. It is not with the Palestinian people,” she said.
“Israel is committed to facilitating the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip through the Rafah Crossing in Egypt and the Kerem Shalom crossing in Israel,” she said, adding that the majority of the aid entering Gaza today is not through UNRWA but through other U.N. agencies.
“As you all know, the United Nations has mechanisms which exist to distribute aid in response to crisis and there are U.N. agencies which are operating and delivering what is required in Gaza, as they do all over the world,” she said.
The Israeli ambassador accused UNRWA of harboring terrorists in its ranks. “The international community cannot and should not tolerate or fund a U.N. agency actively shielding and enabling terrorist activities,” she said.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned Monday that a potential full-fledged military incursion in Rafah would likely kill and injure an extremely high number of civilians, mostly children and women, and end the meager humanitarian aid that has been entering Gaza.
“My office has repeatedly warned against actions that violate the laws of war. The prospect of such an operation into Rafah, as circumstances stand, risks further atrocity crimes. … The world must not allow this to happen,” he said.
He called for an immediate cease-fire. He said that “All remaining hostages must be released. And there must be renewed collective resolve to reach a political solution.”
UNRWA Commissioner General Lazzarini echoed those sentiments.
“Maybe after this cataclysm which has hit the region in Gaza, it might be time now to genuinely find a political solution,” he said. “It would be a disaster that, just before it, we get rid of the mandate and an agency like UNRWA.”
