As international efforts continue to secure a ceasefire in Gaza,
the head of UNRWA, the UN aid agency for Palestinians, warned on
Tuesday that those in the enclave remain deeply traumatised by
the war with Israel and afraid of a full-scale assault on Rafah
in the south.
“People are anxious and in fear of a possible large-scale
military operation,” Philippe Lazzarini said, after emerging from
a briefing with Member States at UN Geneva. “If the
assault takes place, the question is, ‘Where will the civilians
go?’ There is absolutely no safe place in Rafah anymore
and the fear is that the number of people killed and injured
might again significantly increase.”
After more than four months of fighting, sparked by murderous
Hamas-led attacks on 7 October in Israel that left some 1,200
people butchered and more than 250 taken hostage, more than
100,000 Gazans have been reported either killed, injured or are
missing under the rubble by the local health authority, amid
intense Israeli bombardment.
Sea of displacement
Mr. Lazzarini insisted that it was unfeasible to expect the more
than one million displaced people crammed into Rafah governorate
to move once again, so that Israeli forces can continue their
sweep for Hamas militants.
“They are asked to move, the question is where to move,” he said,
noting that in Rafah, every spare piece of land over a
20-kilometre stretch was occupied by hundreds of thousands of
people living in makeshift plastic shelters.
Turning to the issue of the serious allegations that some
UNRWA staff collaborated
with Hamas, the agency chief noted that he had immediately sacked
those involved and initiated an investigation. Mr. Lazzarini also
called for the cooperation of the Israeli authorities.
The UNRWA Commissioner-General also noted that the UN
Secretary-General’s review would begin tomorrow
into allegations against the agency regarding its “use of social
media, about tunnels, about political affiliations” and how
proactive it has been in responding to them.
The process will likely take two months but it should be
accompanied by an inquiry, including into the Israeli military’s
claim that a tunnel and data centre located 20 metres beneath
UNRWA’s headquarters in Gaza City was used by Hamas, Mr.
Lazzarini said.
Installations hit
“We need to look at all the situations where UN premises have
been blatantly disrespected. Since the beginning of the war
more than 150 of our installations have been hit. We know that
some installations have been completely destroyed, hundreds of
people have been killed, thousands have been injured and all this
needs to be investigated independently, together with the
allegation of a tunnel.”
Earlier, Israel’s Permanent Ambassador to the UN in Geneva,
Meirav Eilon Shahar, noted that her Government wished “no harm”
to civilians in Gaza and that it did intend to cooperate with the
investigation into UNRWA, although it “remained at war with the
terrorist organization Hamas”.
“Our fight is with Hamas, it is not with the Palestinian people,”
said the Ambassador, who also insisted that “there are
alternatives to UNRWA” – a claim rejected by Mr. Lazzarini who
said that it would be “shortsighted” to close the agency at a
time when senior UN humanitarians and NGOs were calling for aid
to be stepped up to Gaza.
Future at risk
“We have half a million girls and boys deeply traumatised that we
urgently need to bring back into an education system,” the UNWRA
chief said. This would not be provided by “an emerging local
administration”, he insisted, adding that “there is absolutely no
other UN agency” or NGO with the experience in providing
government-like services, including education to hundreds of
thousands of children.
“If we want to give a chance to any future transition to succeed,
we need also to make sure that the international community has
the tools, and one of these tools is UNRWA.”
