UNRWA 'very near' possible breaking point in Gaza operation, head says

UNRWA is close to a possible breaking point for its operations in the Gaza Strip due to increasingly complicated conditions imposed on it by Israel, its head said today according to Reuters.

“I will not hide the fact that we might reach a point that we won’t be able anymore to operate,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told journalists at a news conference in Berlin.

“We are very near to a possible breaking point. When will it be? I don’t know. But we are very near of that,” he said.

He said the agency was facing a combination of a financial and political threats to its existence, in addition to difficulties in day-to-day operations, as aid is even more desperately needed to fight off the threat of disease and famine.

There is a real risk, heading into winter, with people’s immune systems weakened, that famine or acute malnutrition could become a likelihood, he warned.

UNRWA provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

Israel imposed a complete siege on the Gaza Strip in October last year banning the entry of food, water, fuel and other essentials including medical supplies. Announcing the siege, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Palestinians in the Strip were “human animals”.

Since then, a “man-made famine” has begun to take hold with dozens of people dying of starvation, with children hit the hardest.

Israel has long lobbied to have UNRWA closed as it is the only UN agency to have a specific mandate to look after the basic needs of Palestinian refugees. If the agency no longer exists, argues Israel, then the refugee issue must no longer exist, and the legitimate right for Palestinian refugees to return to their land will be unnecessary. Israel has denied that right of return since the late 1940s, even though its own membership of the UN was made conditional upon Palestinian refugees being allowed to return to their homes and land.

Legislation being advanced in the Knesset at present includes laws banning UNRWA’s operations in Israel, which would curtail its ability to support Palestinians in the occupied territories as all aid would have to travel through Israel to reach the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and the besieged Gaza Strip.

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