LONDON: The US risks triggering a security crisis in the Arab world if it follows through with threats to suspend funding to Palestinian refugees, according to a Palestine Liberation Organizaton (PLO) official.
It comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for the closure of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, just days after US President Donald Trump threatened to cut financial assistance.
“Thousands” of children and teenagers would be left without access to education should the US withhold funding to the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian Refugees, cautioned Kanaan Al-Jamal, who oversees the UNRWA portfolio for the PLO in Ramallah.
“There are lots of terrorist groups targeting those teenagers,” Al-Jamal told Arab News. “This will affect national security for everyone, not just the Palestinians.”
Israel has been a long-standing critic of UNRWA.
“UNRWA is an organization that perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem,” Netanyahu said at his Cabinet meeting on Sunday.
He said that millions of other refugees were covered by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and questioned why Palestinians should have their own body.
“This absurd situation must be ended,” Netanyahu said.
Trump has threatened to cut “massive future payments” to the Palestinians who he blames for stalling peace talks with Israel.
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley doubled down on the threat earlier this week: “The President has basically said he doesn’t want to give any additional funding, or stop funding, until the Palestinians agree to come back to the negotiation table,” she told reporters in response to a question about funding for UNRWA.
Peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine hit an abrupt roadblock in December when President Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel marking a dramatic shift in US policy. The move drew sharp criticism from world leaders who overwhelmingly consider East Jerusalem to be Palestinian territory.
Following Trump’s announcement a spokesperson for the Palestinian leadership said that any future peace negotiations must “be based on international laws and resolutions that have recognized an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
Pending a final peace settlement, however, millions of Palestinian refugees rely on assistance from UNRWA.
The UN agency, founded in 1949, is funded largely by US donations, which account for some 30 percent of the annual operating budget.
In 2016, the US pledged $368 million to UNRWA programs, more than double the amount of the second largest donor, the EU.
Some 5 million Palestinian refugees spread across four countries rely on UNRWA services ranging from medical support to food assistance.
More than half of its annual budget is spent on education, with half a million Palestinian children currently attending schools managed by the organization.
Withholding US funds to the agency, Al-Jamal warned, could have dire consequences for those children. In Palestine alone, “thousands of children” would be affected as the suspension of US donations would force UNRWA schools to shutter, he said. “This would really be a disaster for everybody,” Al-Jamal said. “Without funds, these children will be in the streets… That is our concern,” he said.
UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness, told Arab News: “UNRWA’s mandate is set by the UN General Assembly whose members give wide and strong support to the agency’s humanitarian and human development mission, while paying tribute to our indispensable contribution to peace and security, working with some of the most marginalized communities in the Middle East.”
He added: “What perpetuates the refugee crisis is the failure of the parties to deal with the issue. This needs to be resolved by the parties to the conflict in the context of peace talks, based on UN resolutions and international law, and requires the active engagement by the international community.”
In Palestine, concerns are mounting that the Trump administration will follow through with threatened funding cuts. Palestinian representatives have called for an emergency session of the UNRWA advisory committee, and a meeting has been scheduled with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss the issue in the coming days, said Al-Jamal.
Al-Jamal accused the Trump administration of playing politics with the lives of the most vulnerable Palestinian refugees. By wielding crucial humanitarian aid as “political money,” the administration was “twisting the arm of the Palestinians through UNRWA,” Al-Jamal said.
Likening Washington’s tactics to blackmail, he said that Trump was attempting to force the Palestinian leadership to re-engage in peace negotiations on unfavorable terms.
Palestinians fear US aid threat would trigger humanitarian, security disaster
Palestinians fear US aid threat would trigger humanitarian, security disaster
Israel strikes ‘infrastructure’ on Syria-Lebanon border
- It did not specify whether the strikes were on the Syrian or Lebanese side
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military reported it conducted air strikes on Friday targeting “infrastructure” on the Syrian-Lebanese border near the village of Janta, which it said was used to smuggle weapons to the armed group Hezbollah.
“Earlier today, the IAF (Israeli air force) struck infrastructure that was used to smuggle weapons via Syria to the Hezbollah terrorist organization in Lebanon at the Janta crossing on the Syrian-Lebanese border,” the military said in a statement.
It did not specify whether the strikes were on the Syrian or Lebanese side, but they came a day after Lebanon’s army accused Israel of “violation of the ceasefire agreement by attacking Lebanese sovereignty and destroying southern towns and villages.”
There is no official crossing point near Janta but the area is known for illegal crossings.
The UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL, has also expressed concern over “continuing destruction” caused by Israeli forces in south Lebanon.
The Israeli military said Friday’s strikes were aimed at preventing weapons falling into the hands of Hezbollah, with whom it fought a land and air war for more than a year until a ceasefire was agreed upon last month.
“These strikes are an additional part of the IDF’s (Israeli military’s) effort to target weapons smuggling operations from Syria into Lebanon, and prevent Hezbollah from re-establishing weapons smuggling routes,” the military said.
“The IDF will continue to act to remove any threat to the state of Israel in accordance with the understandings in the ceasefire agreement.”
The truce went into effect on November 27, about two months after Israel stepped up its bombing campaign and later sent troops into Lebanon following nearly a year of exchanges of cross-border fire initiated by Hezbollah over the war in Gaza.
Israel hospital says woman killed in stabbing attack in coastal city
- Israel’s police said the suspected attacker had been arrested
HERZLIYA, Israel: An Israeli hospital reported that a woman in her eighties was killed after being stabbed in the coastal city of Herzliya on Friday, while police stated that the suspected attacker had been arrested.
“She was brought to the hospital with multiple stab wounds while undergoing resuscitation efforts, but the hospital staff was forced to pronounce her death upon arrival,” Tel Aviv Ichilov hospital said in a statement. Israel’s police said the suspected attacker had been arrested.
Yemen Houthis claim missile attack on Tel Aviv airport: statement
- Houthis also launched drones at Tel Aviv and a ship in the Arabian Sea
SANAA: Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis on Friday claimed a strike against the airport in Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv on Friday, after Israeli air strikes hit rebel-held Sanaa’s international airport and other targets in Yemen.
The Israeli strikes on Thursday landed as the head of the UN’s World Health Organization said he and his team were preparing to fly out from Yemen’s Houthi rebel-held capital.
Hours later on Friday, the Houthis said they fired a missile at Ben Gurion airport and launched drones at Tel Aviv as well as a ship in the Arabian Sea.
No other details were immediately available.
Yemen’s civil aviation authority said the airport planned to reopen on Friday after the strikes that it said occurred while the UN aircraft “was getting ready for its scheduled flight.”
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether they knew at the time that WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was there. Israel’s attack came a day after the Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed the firing of a missile and two drones at Israel.
Yemen’s Houthis have stepped up their attacks against Israel since late November when a ceasefire took effect between Israel and another Iran-backed group, Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The Houthis Al-Masirah TV said the Israeli strikes killed six people, after earlier Houthi statements said two people died at the rebel-held capital’s airport, and another at Ras Issa port.
The strikes targeting the airport, military facilities and power stations in rebel areas marked the second time since December 19 that Israel has hit targets in Yemen after rebel missile fire toward Israel.
In his latest warning to the rebels, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would “continue until the job is done.”
“We are determined to cut this branch of terrorism from the Iranian axis of evil,” he said in a video statement.
UN chief condemns ‘escalation’ between Yemen’s Houthis and Israel
- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls Israeli strikes on Sanaa airport ‘especially alarming’
NEW YORK: The UN chief on Thursday denounced the “escalation” in hostilities between Yemen’s Houthi militias and Israel, terming strikes on the Sanaa airport “especially alarming.”
“The Secretary-General condemns the escalation between Yemen and Israel. Israeli airstrikes today on Sana’a International Airport, the Red Sea ports and power stations in Yemen are especially alarming,” said a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a statement.
Israeli air strikes pummeled Sanaa’s international airport and other targets in Yemen on Thursday, with Houthi militia media reporting six deaths.
The attack came a day after the Houthis fired a missile and two drones at Israel.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media he was at the airport during the strike, with the UN saying that a member of its air crew was injured.
The United Nations put the death toll from the airport strikes at three, with “dozens more injured.”
UN chief Guterres expressed particular alarm at the threat that bombing transportation infrastructure posed to humanitarian aid operations in Yemen, where 80 percent of the population is dependent on aid.
“The Secretary-General remains deeply concerned about the risk of further escalation in the region and reiterates his call for all parties concerned to cease all military actions and exercise utmost restraint,” he said.
“He also warns that airstrikes on Red Sea ports and Sana’a airport pose grave risks to humanitarian operations at a time when millions of people are in need of life-saving assistance.”
The UN chief condemned the Houthi militias for “a year of escalatory actions... in the Red Sea and the region that threaten civilians, regional stability and freedom of maritime navigation.”
The Houthis are part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” alliance against Israel.
Bodies of about 100 Kurdish women, children found in Iraq mass grave
TAL AL-SHAIKHIA, Iraq: Iraqi authorities are working to exhume the remains of around 100 Kurdish women and children thought to have been killed in the 1980s under former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein, three officials said.
The grave was discovered in Tal Al-Shaikhia in the Muthanna province in southern Iraq, about 15-20 kilometers (10-12 miles) from the main road there, an AFP journalist said.
Specialized teams began exhuming the grave earlier this month after it was initially discovered in 2019, said Diaa Karim, the head of the Iraqi authority for mass graves, adding that it is the second such grave to be uncovered at the site.
“After removing the first layer of soil and the remains appearing clearly, it was discovered that they all belonged to women and children dressed in Kurdish springtime clothes,” Karim told AFP on Wednesday.
He added that they likely came from Kalar in the northern Sulaimaniyah province, part of what is now Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, estimating that there were “no less than 100” people buried in the grave.
Efforts to exhume all the bodies are ongoing, he said, adding that the numbers could change.
Following Iraq’s deadly war with Iran in the 1980s, Saddam’s government carried out the ruthless “Anfal Operation” between 1987 and 1988 in which it is thought to have killed around 180,000 Kurds.
Saddam was toppled in 2003 following a US-led invasion of Iraq and was hanged three years later, putting an end to Iraqi proceedings against him on charges of genocide over the Anfal campaign.
Karim said a large number of the victims found in the grave “were executed here with live shots to the head fired at short range.”
He suggested some of them may have been “buried alive” as there was no evidence of bullets in their remains.
Ahmed Qusai, the head of the excavation team for mass graves in Iraq, meanwhile pointed to “difficulties we are facing at this grave because the remains have become entangled as some of the mothers were holding their infants” when they were killed.
Durgham Kamel, part of the authority for exhuming mass graves, said another mass grave was found at the same time that they began exhuming the one at Tal Al-Shaikhia.
He said the burial site was located near the notorious Nugrat Al-Salman prison where Saddam’s authorities held dissidents.
The Iraqi government estimates that about 1.3 million people disappeared between 1980 and 1990 as a result of atrocities and other rights violations committed under Saddam.
