“HUNGER, DESPAIR, DEATH”
Israel says UNRWA staff took part in the Oct 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza. The UN has said nine UNRWA staff may have been involved and had been fired. A Hamas commander in Lebanon – killed by Israel – was also found to have had an UNRWA job.
“By voting for these resolutions, you are not voting to protect humanitarian values, but to protect an organization that has become a haven for terror,” Danon told the assembly on Wednesday before the vote.
UNRWA was established by the General Assembly in 1949 following the war surrounding the founding of Israel. The UN has repeatedly said there is no alternative to UNRWA, which provides aid, health and education to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
“Gaza doesn’t exist anymore. It is destroyed. Palestinians are facing hunger, despair and death,” Slovenia’s UN Ambassador Samuel Zbogar told the assembly. “There is no reason for this war to continue. We need a ceasefire now. We need to bring hostages home now.”
The war in the Palestinian enclave began after Hamas gunmen on Oct 7, 2023, stormed into Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages back to Hamas-run Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, Israel’s military has levelled swathes of Gaza, driving nearly all of its 2.3 million people from their homes, giving rise to deadly hunger and disease and killing more than 44,800 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, who do not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
