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Muhammad Amin
Israel has displayed its genocidal intentions to exterminate all Gazans through starvation by banning Unrwa, the UN aid food agency for Palestinian refugees, as a “terror” group.
It is no longer allowed to operate on Palestinian soil occupied by the terror state.
The move is aimed at preventing UNRWA from providing life-saving support to millions of Palestinians across Gaza and the West Bank. That’s despite UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warning UNRWA’s work is “indispensable”.
Nothing to fill the gap
He says there is “no alternative” to the agency.
Israel has not taken measures to fill the gap that will be left by Unrwa even though it knows cutting the supply line will immediately perch millions of civilians on the brink of famine.
UNRWA has been sometimes the only lifeline bringing food into the besieged enclave ever since its creation in 1949 to support Palestinian refugees expelled during the Nakba.
It is still the main organisation providing humanitarian services in Gaza, with millions of Palestinians refugees relying on it in the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
“We will not allow this. The overwhelming vote of the Knesset reflects Israel’s transformation into a fascist state,” Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, said.
Hamas denounced the move as “part of the Zionist war and aggression against our people”, while Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) called it “an escalation in the genocide”.
‘A year of sheer hell’
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini slammed the Knesset move set a “dangerous precedent” that “opposes the UN Charter and violates the State of Israel’s obligations under international law”.
“These bills will only deepen the suffering of Palestinians, especially in #Gaza where people have been going through more than a year of sheer hell,” he wrote on X.
Fu Cong, the Chinese envoy to the UN, slammed the “outrageous” decision that China firmly opposed because Unrwa was clearly a vital asset to the Palestinians.
Vasily Nebenzia, Russia’s UN ambassador, said the “terrible” decision showed clearly it was time for Israel’s main ally, the United States, to “pay their dues to UNRWA to demonstrate their commitment to the agency”.
‘Assassinating Unrwa politically’
The US has withheld Unrwa funding ever since Israel accused – without any evidence – that some Unrwa staff took part in Hamas’s October 7 attack.
Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned the Israeli ban was “aimed at assassinating UNRWA politically”, warning it would have “catastrophic consequences”.
The governments of Ireland, Norway, Slovenia and Spain, that have recognised Palestinian statehood, jointly condemned Knesset’s ban.
Australia, Switzerland, Belgium and the World Health Organisation also slammed the move.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said UNRWA has been an “irreplaceable lifeline” for the Palestinian people for the past seven decades, warning the ban would have “devastating consequences” for millions of people.
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