UNRWA Says 6 Workers Among at Least 18 Killed in Israeli Strikes on Gaza School
Tag: UNRWA
How Israel wants to replace the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Israel doesn’t even know if any of the 40 killed were Hamas. Yet they are prepared to make the excuse that it was a legitimate precision strike because the 30 Hamas militants they were targeting were holding 6000 Gazans hostage. (Old Dog)
On T hursday, Israel hit a Gaza school building with what it said was a targeted airstrike on up to 30 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters inside, and a Hamas official said 40 people were killed including women and children sheltering at the UN site.
Israel’s military said it had identified nine of 30 militants targeted in the strike. The UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said its school was being used as a shelter for 6000 displaced people at the time.
This evening, Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeter of the UNRWA Headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem.
This took place while UNRWA and other UN Agencies’ staff were on the compound.
While there were no casualties among our staff, the fire caused extensive damage to the outdoor areas. The UNRWA headquarters has on its grounds a petrol and diesel station for the Agency’s fleet of cars.
Source: “Burn down the United Nations” chant Israeli mob in UNRWA HQ attack – Pearls and Irritations
It’s a mad, mad world of American Lawfare and who has the $$ to use it.
Four lawsuits alleging Hamas ties against Students for Justice in Palestine, the AP, UNRWA, and a cryptocurrency exchange share many of the same plaintiffs.
The Israeli authorities, in their campaign of remorseless killing, doctoring and adjusting the numbers of the Palestinian populace for whatever future awaits, have been found wanting on accusations that Hamas terrorists packed, stacked and filled UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East).
From the perspective of lusty warmongers, UNRWA remains an obstacle, a nuisance, a nightmare of reminder to those wishing to be done with the Palestinian issue once and for all. May it continue to thrive, and, more ever, may its funders finally wise up to the fact that in the viciousness of conflict, civilians should never have to pay the price for military actions undertaken by others. Unfortunately, three months after, and a human-confected famine ravaging Gaza even as the killings continue, various donor countries such as the United States, Germany and the UK are still minding their wallets.
Source: Israel’s Anti-UNRWA Campaign Falls Flat – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Israel is as slippery as an eel. Their false claim made before Easter intentionally crippled the distribution of aid in Gaza and increased illness and starvation in the process. Why does the WEST give Israel the benefit of the doubt?
Australia has welcomed an independent report Israel failed to provide evidence members of a United Nations agency that provides humanitarian relief to Palestinians were linked to Hamas.
Source: Australia backs report on Palestine aid agency UNRWA
Israel has yet to provide evidence for its accusations that hundreds of staff with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) are members of terrorist groups, according to a review of the agency’s neutrality that could prompt some donor countries to review funding freezes.
UNRWA provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. The review said UNRWA shares staff lists annually with the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
On Monday, the review said Israel had not raised any concerns with UNRWA, based on those staff lists, since 2011. Then in March 2024, “Israel made public claims that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organisations.”
“Israeli authorities have to date not provided any supporting evidence nor responded to letters from UNRWA in March, and again in April, requesting the names and supporting evidence that would enable UNRWA to open an investigation.”
The groups are the Swedish Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, the Norwegian Chr Michelsen Institute, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights.
Israel leads the Right-wing push against Refugeeism. Yet can’t exist without American aid
This is a time of seismic change in the Middle East. At the heart of this region, the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees – UNRWA – is a stabilising force. Today, an insidious campaign to end UNRWA’s operations is underway, with serious implications for international peace and security, says Philippe Lazzarini.
While Israel tries to focus on the campus “torture of Jews” the real torture goes on behind the mainstream media print
Israel is abusing UNRWA employees detained in Gaza in order to extract forced confessions against the agency, with detainees describing being subjected to acts of torture.
Source: Israel subjects UN workers to torture | The Electronic Intifada
Despite a U.N.-backed report sounding the alarm on imminent famine in northern Gaza, Israeli authorities announced Sunday they will no longer approve the passage of any UNRWA food convoys into northern Gaza. “Our ability to adequately continue saving lives is really being obstructed,” says UNRWA spokesperson Tamara Alrifai. “What’s going to happen to UNRWA if we can no longer truly operate?” The decision came as President Biden signed a $1.2 trillion appropriations bill that strips funding to UNRWA for the next year. The U.S. first suspended aid to UNRWA in late January, when the Israeli government claimed 12 of the agency’s 30,000 employees were involved in Hamas’s attacks on October 7. The unsubstantiated allegation prompted top donors to cut funding to UNRWA, though many of them have resumed funding as the agency welcomes new donor countries and an unprecedented number of civil society donations. Seeing the U.S., the agency’s largest donor, “withhold funding … is a huge blow to us,” says Alrifai. “Stripping UNRWA of funding not only shrinks its ability to respond to the looming famine in Gaza, but also puts at risk the schools, the access of kids to proper education, the vaccines, the mother and child care — everything across the region.”
https://democracynow.cachefly.net/democracynow/360/dn2024-0328.mp4?start=2891.0
The U.S. and more than a dozen other nations suspended funding for UNRWA in the wake of the Israeli allegations. In what UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini later called an act of “reverse due process,” the agency terminated nine employees in response to Israel’s claims, despite admitting to having no evidence to support their firing.
Source: US State Department Claims It Hasn’t Seen Reports of Israel Torturing UNRWA Staff
The Maryland senator defended the organization on CBS and said there was no evidence that it was a “proxy for Hamas.”
Source: Sen Van Hollen Says Netanyahu Spreading ‘Flat Out Lies’ About UNRWA
On Monday, the Times of Israel reported that the country’s forces intended to unilaterally dismantle UNRWA within Gaza, with its functions hived off to other agencies of the military’s choosing.
While it was not clear which agencies the Israeli military had designated, or if negotiations were under way, the report did note that this move against the agency came as the latest in a longstanding campaign to discredit it, which goes back to UNRWA’s 1949 founding, mandating the agency to support displaced Palestinian refugees until they could return home.
As hunger worsens, with 15 children reported to have starved to death in recent days, UNRWA’s role in helping prevent what agencies are warning of a “humanitarian crisis” grows increasingly vital.
Other agencies, such as the Danish Refugee Council have warned that neither they nor other NGOs still operating in Gaza can replicate UNRWA’s role.
An honourable way out of complicity in genocide does not exist. Certainly, governments may be able to rely on the fact that Israel has, so far, failed to provide credible evidence to justify its allegations that UNRWA staff members were involved in the 7 October incursion into Israel. But genocide is a war crime, and starvation as a weapon of genocide is not only dishonourable, but intentional.
Source: Gaza Aid and the West: An Honorable Way out of Complicity in Genocide Does not Exist
Trucks get in but the IDF is stopping them. Israel hasn’t provided sufficient entry points near the areas most needed. So to self-congratulations is stands out and shines a spotlight on their real intent to continue to weaponize starvation.
“The work that UNWRA does cannot be overstated,” said Canadian lawmaker Salma Zahid. “It will save lives as we have seen the visuals of children dying of hunger in Gaza. The need for immediate aid is non-negotiable.”
Source: Canada, Sweden Restore UNRWA Funds as Report Accuses Israel of Torturing Agency Staff
It is impossible to adequately describe the suffering in Gaza. The death toll in Gaza is staggering. More than 30,000 Palestinians have reportedly been killed in just 150 days. 5% of the population is dead, injured or missing. Doctors are amputating the limbs of injured children without anaesthetic. Hunger is everywhere. A man-made famine is looming. It is a stain on our collective conscience that for 75 years UNRWA has had to fill a vacuum left by the lack of a political solution and a genuine peace. And yet UNRWA is now facing a deliberate and concerted campaign to undermine its operations, and ultimately end them, writes UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.
Source: UNRWA is at a breaking point – Pearls and Irritations
UNRWA, the United Nations Palestinian refugee relief agency, has faced severe funding cuts after Israel dubiously accused the organization of ties to Hamas. We spoke with a director of UNRWA in Jordan about the impact of the cuts.
Israel’s Minister For National Security demands All Aid to Gaza be cut. Ex- Terrorists have always advocated politics before Religion. He’s a Zionist and a Jew. However, all Jews around for 3000yrs aren’t Zionists around for less than 200yrs and the two shouldn’t be conflated. Zionists wish to change Judaism into an idolatrous cult. If you’re anti-Zionist you’re not antisemitic the two aren’t equivalent.
To feed children, treat the wounded, and save innocent lives, the U.S. must restore UNRWA’s funding.
Israel will ceasefire on Trump’s request leaving Biden naked and gone
Creating conditions that threaten the survival of all or part of a given population is part of the very definition of genocide under international law. To feed children, treat the wounded, and save innocent lives — and avoid being complicit in genocide — the U.S. must restore UNRWA’s funding and use its leverage to compel an immediate cease-fire in the conflict.
The US and more than a dozen other countries cut off aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, worsening the humanitarian crisis in Gaza based on charges US intelligence has “low confidence” in. It’s as cruel and absurd as this entire war.
Source: The War on UNRWA Is Israel’s Awful, Absurd War in Microcosm
In the meantime, Lazzarini has been scrambling to fill the funding void, making visits to the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait. The dying and starvation in Gaza continue with the prospect of even more horror as Israel’s armed forces prepare their offensive on Rafah. A fine thing, then, to see donor countries for UNRWA, some of whom continue funding Israel’s military efforts, to moralise about terrorists and the agency.
Source: Absence of Evidence: Israel’s Case Against UNRWA – » The Australian Independent Media Network
“UNRWA’s role in documenting the genocide, as well as providing food and aid to the Palestinians, infuriates the Israeli government.”
“Israel has given the Palestinians in Gaza two choices. Leave or die.”
Source: Chris Hedges: Let Them Eat Dirt
Does Australia’s government treat Jews and Palestinians differently, both in foreign policy and at home? Defunding the UNWRA is the latest example of double standards and puts Australia at further risk of breaching the Genocide Convention. Farah Abdurahman on aid cuts, false allegations and fake chants.
We urge donor states to reaffirm support for the vital work that UNRWA and its partners do to help Palestinians survive one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of our times. Countries must reverse these funding suspensions, uphold their duties towards the Palestinian people and scale up humanitarian assistance for civilians in dire need in Gaza and the region.
Has this decision been foisted on them by the Australian Israeli Lobby, the LNP, Murdoch, or IPA? It’s certainly not a decision ALP voters would expect of their government. If Palestinian refugees came by boat would they find themselves in forced detention in open-air offshore concentration camps again? We know what Peter Dutton’s position is on that score Yes. While telling Australia it’s a holiday resort compared to where they are now. Israel will be the people smugglers and supply the boats with the foreign aid they already get from us no doubt.
There can be little more morally degenerate than the enabling of and cooperation with what the ICJ has warned is Israel’s “plausible genocide” in Gaza. Wong and Albanese have lost all moral authority and should prepare themselves for their every public utterance to be greeted with contempt, derision and scorn.
The Australian Government has paused contributing to the distribution of aid to Gaza, a decision likely influenced by our toxic allegiance to the USA. Dr Jennifer Wilson reports.
Source: Australia’s withholding of aid to Gaza a human rights disgrace
Has British Law has been thrown out the window by what Mark Regev simply ALLEGES? 12 Independent UNRWA workers out of 13,000 weren’t “Independent” ERGO the biggest UN Aid Agency is a systemic agent of HAMAS? Stop the aid!! Mark Regev is a proven systemic essential of Israel’s current offensive he is a central suit in Israel’s attack on Gaza. The 12 UNRWA workers of 13,000 weren’t! What bullshit logic is being applied here?
12 black sheep don’t define a herd of 13,000. One sandwich doesn’t make a picnic. We didn’t judge Israel or suspend arms supply when allegations of genocide were made or that the IDF was ordered to shoot their own citizens. We continued supply when it was alleged Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem were being murdered and kidnapped. In fact, we allowed Israel to conduct their own investigation sometime in the future. That is an Israeli Promise!
Within 24 hours of an allegation made by Mark Regev, an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to the BBC last Friday, that 12 employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) participated in the October 7 operation, foreign ministers of the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and a few other countries, jumped to announce they are pausing their funding to UNRWA, thus collectively punishing millions of Palestinian refugees throughout the region.
It really does seem like a conspiracy with Israel having killed 157 UNRWA staff and many more other independent observers like reporters. A simple allegation accusing the UNWRA of being a systemic branch of Hamas is enough to cut aid. AIPAC and the Israel Lobby appear to have Biden on a short string in this 2024 election year and had him cut aid to Gaza on their behalf. 1M children lack clothing food water, fuel or electricity and winter is coming on. America and its Western allies have been drawn into war crimes and assisting in an act of genocide.
The 17-judge panel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague issued a series of rulings on Friday about Israel’s conduct during its war against Gaza that constitute a significant legal defeat for Israel and its chief defenders, the United States and Germany.
Source: ICJ Ruling on Gaza Genocide Is Victory for Palestinians That Israel Vows to Defy
The Actions of Israel are a reported factual embarrassment to them. The ICJ told Israel to increase the flow of aid to Gaza and stop using it as a weapon. It’s no coincidence that to continue to restrict aid they accused the UNRWA of being a systemic branch of Hamas. However, simply an allegation rather than a fact. The US or Biden is wedged by Trump in this election year and has been dancing to the Israel Lobby’s tune and has cut UNRWA aid to Gaza. Biden is Israel’s get-out-of-jail card. The UNRWA was a source of independent information that Israel didn’t want to be revealed so reporters and doctors had to be declared branch of Hamas?
The blocking of aid at Kerem Shalom also comes days after the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor reported that the IDF launched an attack with artillery shells, live ammunition, and drones on “hundreds of starving civilians” who were waiting near Gaza City for “U.N. trucks carrying limited aid supplies.” Health officials in Gaza said at least 20 people were killed and 150 were injured in the attack.
Source: As Civilians Starve in Gaza, Israelis Block Humanitarian Aid Convoy for Third Day – ScheerPost
Israel says “Jump ” Biden says “How High?” This is a case of the “Tail Wagging the Dog” Or is simply “A Tale Wagging the Dog?” The LOBBY & AIPAC certainly are!
Biden cut aid on the advice of ISRAEL?
Israel’s war on Gaza live: Aid cuts are ‘collective punishment’ – UNRWA
In December, UNRWA announced that Israel’s onslaught against Gaza had killed 142 employees of the organization.
The State Department paused additional funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) after the Israeli government accused 12 UNRWA workers of being involved in the October 7 Hamas attack.
olddogthoughts 
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