NEW YORK: United Nations chief Antonio Guterres declared on Friday that there is no alternative to the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA and 118 countries backed the relief organization as indispensable, amid stepped up efforts by Israel to dismantle it.
The UN Relief and Works Agency provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Since war erupted nine months ago between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, UN officials have stressed UNRWA is the backbone of aid operations.
“My appeal to everyone is this: Protect UNRWA, protect UNRWA staff, and protect UNRWA’s mandate — including through funding,” Guterres told an UNRWA pledging conference in New York on Friday. “Let me be clear: there is no alternative to UNRWA.”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long-called for UNRWA to be dismantled, accusing it of anti-Israeli incitement, and Israel’s parliament is currently considering designating 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, while the UN is conducting an internal investigation.
UNRWA has been hit hard during the conflict in Gaza — 195 staff have been killed.
“UNRWA is also being targeted in other ways,” Guterres said. “Staff have been the subject of increasingly violent protests and virulent misinformation and disinformation campaigns.”
“Some have been detained by Israeli security forces, and subsequently reported mistreatment and even torture,” he said, adding that in the West Bank the presence and movements of UNRWA staff have also been severely restricted by Israel.
The Israeli military has said it acts according to Israeli and international law and those it arrests get access to food, water, medication and proper clothing.
Israel accuses UNRWA of complicity with Hamas, saying the militant Islamist group was embedded within the UN agency’s infrastructure.
UNRWA was created by the UN General Assembly in 1949 following the first Arab-Israeli war. Jordan’s UN Ambassador Mahmoud Daifallah Hmoud said on Friday ahead of the pledging event that 118 countries had signed on to a joint statement supporting UNRWA and its work.
The statement underlined “that UNRWA is the backbone of all humanitarian response in Gaza, and recognizing that no organization can replace or substitute UNRWA’s capacity.”
UN chief says no alternative to UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA
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UN chief says no alternative to UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA
- Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long-called for UNRWA to be dismantled
Iran says it does not want regional escalation but must ‘punish’ Israel
- Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson calls on the US to stop supporting Israel
- Nasser Kanaani: International community had failed in its duty to safeguard stability in the region
“Iran seeks to establish stability in the region, but this will only come with punishing the aggressor and creating deterrence against the adventurism of the Zionist regime (Israel),” Nasser Kanaani said, adding that action from Tehran was inevitable.
Kanaani called on the United States to stop supporting Israel, saying the international community had failed in its duty to safeguard stability in the region and should support the “punishment of the aggressor.”
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ top Commander Hossein Salami on Monday reiterated the elite group’s threat that Israel “will receive punishment in due time.”
Tehran and Iran-aligned groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah have accused Israel of
killing Haniyeh
on 31st July.
Israeli officials have not claimed responsibility.
Lebanon says two dead in Israeli strike
- Since last week, tensions have soared as Iran and Tehran-backed groups, including Hezbollah
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said two people were killed Monday in an Israeli strike on the country’s south, where Hezbollah has been trading near-daily fire with Israel since the start of the Gaza war in October.
Since last week, tensions have soared as Iran and Tehran-backed groups, including Hezbollah, vowed revenge for the killing of Hamas’s political leader in Tehran and Israel’s killing of Hezbollah’s military chief in Beirut.
“The enemy raid that took place near the (Mais Al-Jabal) town’s cemetery killed two people,” Lebanon’s Health Ministry said in a statement.
“One of the two martyrs who fell in the Mais Al-Jabal raid this morning was a Risala Scouts paramedic,” Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said.
Ali Abbas, a rescue worker from the Risala Scouts which is affiliated with Hezbollah ally the Amal movement, told AFP that the paramedic had traveled by motorcycle with another person to inspect the site of an earlier strike.
He went “to see if there were civilians or people (in the area)... and the second strike happened immediately,” Abbas said.
Mais Al-Jabal, a frontline village less than two kilometers away from the border with Israel, has experienced heavy bombardment since the cross-border clashes began, forcing most residents to leave.
Early on Monday, Hezbollah said it had targeted military sites in northern Israel with “explosive-laden drones” in response to Israeli “attacks and assassinations” in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military said “numerous suspicious aerial targets were identified crossing from Lebanon” into northern Israel, starting a fire and leaving an officer and a soldier “moderately injured.”
The cross-border violence since October has killed at least 549 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also including at least 116 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, including the annexed Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 25 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.
Turkiye urges citizens to leave Lebanon due to security risks
- Turks in Lebanon should be cautious and should not go to Nebatiyeh, South Lebanon, Bekaa and Baalbek-Hermel governorates unless it is essential
ISTANBUL: Turkiye urged its citizens in Lebanon to leave the country if they do not need to stay, due to the possibility that the security situation there will deteriorate rapidly, its foreign ministry said late on Sunday.
Tensions have soared since the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the Palestinian group Hamas, in Tehran on Wednesday, a day after an Israeli strike in Beirut killed Fuad Shukr, a top military commander from Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
Turks in Lebanon should be cautious and should not go to Nebatiyeh, South Lebanon, Bekaa and Baalbek-Hermel governorates unless it is essential, the ministry said in a statement.
“Those who do not need to stay in Lebanon should leave Lebanon while commercial flights are still operating, if possible,” it said, adding that Turks should avoid traveling to Lebanon unless essential.
Earlier on Sunday, France and Italy urged their citizens in Lebanon to leave the country due to the risk of military escalation in the Middle East.
Israel says no change in defense policy for ‘now’
- Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's killing last week has triggered fears of regional conflict
- Israel’s statement comes amid warnings of retaliation from Iran, Lebanon-based Hezbollah
JERUSALEM: Israel’s army said Sunday it had not changed “as of now” its policy for protecting civilians, as Iran and Hezbollah are expected to avenge killings blamed on Israel of two senior members.
“I would like to refer tonight to the various reports and rumors that we are on alert for the enemy’s response to the territory of the State of Israel,” military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in an online briefing to journalists.
“I emphasize that as of now there is no change in the Home Front Command’s defense policy,” he said of a branch of the army that deals with the protection of civilians in times of war and emergency, including natural disasters.
Hagari and other top Israeli military and government officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have repeatedly said the country is prepared for any attack.
But Hagari said that Israel’s protection is not “hermetic.”
“We strive to give you the necessary warning to prepare for any threat,” he said.
“The protection is not hermetic. Therefore, every citizen is required to know what the instructions are, wherever he is and to be vigilant.”
Hagari also announced that the Home Front Command has launched a new system to alert citizens in the event of any emergency.
“The alert will be sent to mobile phones in the area under threat,” he said.
“This is done without the need for an application and without any action on the part of the citizen.”
Fears that the almost 10-month-old Gaza war could become a regional conflict after the killings Tuesday of Hezbollah top commander Fuad Shukr in a Beirut suburb and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh the following day in Tehran.
Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah have vowed to avenge the deaths which they blame on Israel.
Israel has claimed responsibility for killing Shukr but remained silent on Haniyeh’s death.
Hezbollah has been trading near-daily cross-border fire with Israel since war erupted in Gaza on October 7 following Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel.
Iraqi PM links regional tensions to Gaza in call with Blinken
CAIRO: Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a phone call on Sunday that preventing regional escalation is tied to stopping Israeli “aggression” in the Gaza Strip, Iraqi state media said.
