GENEVA: The head of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) on Monday called on partners to fight back against efforts by Israel to have the organization disbanded as it provides humanitarian assistance to Gaza and across the region.
“Israel has long been critical of the agency’s mandate. But it now seeks to end UNRWA’s operations, dismissing the agency’s status as a United Nations entity supported by an overwhelming majority of member states,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said at a meeting of the agency’s advisory commission in Geneva.
“If we do not push back, other UN entities and international organizations will be next, further undermining our multilateral system.”
The Israeli diplomatic mission in Geneva had no immediate comment.
Lazzarini said the agency, which has provided essential aid to Gazans throughout Israel’s offensive, was “staggering under the weight of relentless attacks.”
“In Gaza, the agency has paid a terrible price: 193 UNRWA personnel have been killed,” he said.
“More than 180 installations have been damaged or destroyed, killing at least 500 people seeking United Nations protection...Our premises have been used for military purposes by Israel, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.”
Lazzarini said the agency was being subjected to a “concerted effort” to dismantle it, including through legislative initiatives threatening to evict the agency from its compound and labelling UNRWA as a terrorist organization.
Several countries halted their funding to UNRWA following accusations by Israel that some of the agency’s staff were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war. Most donors have since resumed their funding.
Lazzarini said that UNRWA still lacked the necessary resources to fulfil its mandate.
“The agency’s ability to operate beyond August will depend on member states disbursing planned funds and providing new contributions to the core budget,” he said.
Established in 1949 following the first Arab-Israeli war, UNRWA provides services including schooling, primary health care and humanitarian aid in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
UNRWA chief urges pushback against efforts to disband Palestinian agency
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UNRWA chief urges pushback against efforts to disband Palestinian agency
- UNRWA’s Philippe Lazzarini: ‘If we do not push back, other UN entities and international organizations will be next, further undermining our multilateral system’
- Several countries halted their funding to UNRWA following accusations by Israel that some of the agency’s staff were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack
28 Palestinians including children killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza
- Israeli military says that over the past 48 hours, troops struck approximately 250 targets in the Gaza Strip
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Israeli airstrikes killed at least 28 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, including four children, hospital officials said Saturday.
The children and two women were among at least 13 people who were killed in Deir Al-Balah, in central Gaza, after Israeli airstrikes pounded the area starting late Friday, officials in Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Hospital said. Another four people were killed in strikes near a fuel station, and 15 others died in Israeli airstrikes in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, according to Nasser Hospital.
The Israeli military said in a statement that over the past 48 hours, troops struck approximately 250 targets in the Gaza Strip, including militants, booby-trapped structures, weapons storage facilities, anti-tank missile launch posts, sniper posts, tunnels and additional Hamas infrastructure sites. The military did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’ request for comment on the civilian deaths.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people in their Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and abducted 251. They still hold 50 hostages, less than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, which is under Gaza’s Hamas-run government, doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. The UN and other international organizations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.
US President Donald Trump has said that he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war. But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu there were no signs of a breakthrough.
Syria denies ‘escalatory intentions’ towards Lebanon: sources
- A source said the Syrian government considers the issue of Syrian detainees in Lebanese prisons a top priority
- Syrian authorities have accused Lebanon of procrastination to repatriate its imprisoned nationals
DUBAI: The Syrian government has denied reports that Damascus intends to take escalatory measures against Beirut over the case of Syrian prisoners in Lebanon, sources said on Friday.
A source from Syria’s Ministry of Information said the Syrian government considers the issue of Syrian detainees in Lebanese prisons a top priority, adding that it is committed to resolving it swiftly through official channels between the two countries.
Sources close to the Syrian government were previously quoted by a television channel saying Damascus was considering diplomatic and economic escalation against Beirut.
The source claimed Damascus was considering the escalation over what it described as Lebanon’s disregard to the fate of Syrian detainees in Lebanese prisons, which an unnamed official related to the Syrian information ministry also denied.
Syrian authorities have accused Lebanon of procrastination to repatriate about one third of more than 2,000 of its imprisoned nationals.
The fate of the Syrian prisoners has irritated Damascus given that Lebanon had announced in March that it was ready to repatriate them.
Turkish president hails the start of disarmament by militant Kurdish separatists
- Today is a new day; a new page has opened in history, Erdogan said
- Thirty PKK militants burned their weapons at the mouth of a cave in northern Iraq on Friday
ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday hailed start of a disarmament process by militant Kurdish separatists as the end of a “painful chapter” in Turkey's troubled history.
Erdogan told a meeting of his ruling AKP party in Ankara that the more than 40-year-old “scourge of terrorism” for which the Kurdistan Workers' Party - or PKK - was responsible is on its way to ending.
Erdogan's remarks came a day after male and female members of the PKK in northern Iraq cast rifles and machine guns into a large cauldron where they were set on fire. The symbolic move was seen as the first step toward a promised disarmament as part of a peace process aimed at ending four decades of hostilities.
The move came after PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since 1999, urged his group in February to convene a congress and formally disband and disarm. In May the PKK announced that it would do so.
The PKK had waged an armed insurgency against Turkey since 1984, initially with the aim of establishing a Kurdish state in the southeast of the country. Over time, the objective evolved into a campaign for autonomy and rights for Kurds within Turkey.
The conflict, which spread beyond Turkey’s borders into Iraq and Syria, killed tens of thousands of people. The PKK is considered to be a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
Previous peace efforts between Turkey and the PKK have ended in failure — most recently in 2015.
“Today the doors of a great Turkey, a strong Turkey, a Turkish century have been opened wide,” Erdogan said.
In a statement issued on Friday, the PKK said the fighters who were laying down their weapons, saying that they had disarmed “as a gesture of goodwill and a commitment to the practical success” of the peace process.
“We will henceforth continue our struggle for freedom, democracy, and socialism through democratic politics and legal means,” the statement said.
But Erdogan insisted that there had been no bargaining with the PKK. “The terror-free Turkey project is not the result of negotiations, bargaining or transactions.” Turkish officials have not disclosed if any concessions have been given to the PKK in exchange for laying down their arms.
The Turkish president also said that a parliamentary commission would be established to oversee the peace process.
Gaza truce talks faltering over withdrawal, Palestinian and Israeli sources say
- Hamas wants Israel to retreat to lines it held in a previous ceasefire before it renewed its offensive in March
- US envoy Steve Witkoff, who played a major role in crafting the latest ceasefire proposal, will travel to Doha this week to join discussions
CAIRO/JERUSALEM: Talks aimed at securing a ceasefire in Gaza are stalling over the extent of Israeli forces’ withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave, Palestinian and Israeli sources familiar with the negotiations in Doha said on Saturday.
The indirect talks over a US proposal for a 60-day ceasefire are nonetheless expected to continue, the sources said, despite the latest obstacles in clinching a deal.
A Palestinian source said that Hamas has rejected the withdrawal maps which Israel has proposed, as they would leave around 40 percent of the territory under Israeli control, including all of the southern area of Rafah and further territories in northern and eastern Gaza.
Two Israeli sources said Hamas wants Israel to retreat to lines it held in a previous ceasefire before it renewed its offensive in March.
The Palestinian source said matters regarding aid and guarantees for ending the war were also presenting a challenge, and added that the crisis may be resolved with more US intervention.
The White House said on Monday that Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, who played a major role in crafting the latest ceasefire proposal, will travel to Doha this week to join discussions there.
Delegations from Israel and Hamas have been in Qatar since Sunday in a renewed push for an agreement which envisages a phased release of hostages, Israeli troop withdrawals and discussions on ending the war entirely.
Hamas has long demanded an end to the war before it would free remaining hostages; Israel has insisted it would end the fighting only when all hostages are released and Hamas is dismantled.
The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages into Gaza. At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages there are believed to still be alive.
Israel’s subsequent campaign against Hamas has since killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, displaced almost the entire population of more than 2 million people, sparked a humanitarian crisis and left much of the territory in ruins.
‘All our crew are Muslim,’ fearful Red Sea ships tell Houthis
- Increasingly desperate messages from commercial vessels trying to avoid attack by Yemen militia
LONDON: Commercial ships sailing through the Red Sea are broadcasting increasingly desperate messages on public channels to avoid being attacked by the Houthi militia in Yemen.
One message read “All Crew Muslim,” some included references to an all-Chinese crew and management, others flagged the presence of armed guards on board, and almost all insisted the ships had no connection to Israel.
Maritime security sources said the messages were a sign of growing desperation to avoid attack, but were unlikely to make any difference. Houthi intelligence preparation was “much deeper and forward-leaning,” one source said.
Houthi attacks off Yemen’s coast began in November 2023 in what the group said was in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza war. A lull this year ended when they sank two ships last week and killed four crew. Vessels in the fleets of both ships had made calls to Israeli ports in the past year.
“Seafarers are the backbone of global trade, keeping countries supplied with food, fuel and medicine. They should not have to risk their lives to do their job,” the Seafarers' Charity.
