{"id":254984,"date":"2024-02-19T12:01:31","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T12:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=254984"},"modified":"2024-07-01T08:20:00","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T07:20:00","slug":"in-waging-war-on-the-un-refugee-agency-the-west-is-openly-siding-with-israeli-genocide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/02\/in-waging-war-on-the-un-refugee-agency-the-west-is-openly-siding-with-israeli-genocide\/","title":{"rendered":"In Waging War on the UN Refugee Agency, the West Is Openly Siding with Israeli Genocide"},"content":{"rendered":"

30 Jan 2024 – Israel has long plotted the downfall of the United Nations\u2019 Relief and Works Agency, aware that it is one of the biggest obstacles to eradicating the Palestinians as a people.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is an important background to the decision by the United States and other leading western states, the UK among them, to freeze funding<\/a> to the United Nations\u2019 Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the main channel by which the UN disseminates food and welfare services to the most desperate and destitute Palestinians.<\/p>\n

The funding cut \u2013 which has been also adopted by Germany, France, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Netherlands, Italy, Australia and Finland \u2013 was imposed even though the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on Friday that Israel may be committing genocide<\/a> in Gaza. The World Court judges quoted<\/a> at length UN officials who warned that Israel\u2019s actions had left almost all of the enclave\u2019s 2.3 million inhabitants on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe, including famine.<\/p>\n

The West\u2019s flimsy pretext for what amounts to a war on UNRWA is that Israel claims 12 local UN staff \u2013 out of 13,000 \u2013 are implicated in Hamas\u2019 break-out from the open-air prison of Gaza on October 7. The sole evidence appears to be coerced confessions, likely extracted through torture, from Palestinian fighters captured by Israel that day.<\/p>\n

The UN immediately sacked all the accused staff, seemingly without due process. We can assume that was because the refugee agency was afraid its already threadbare lifeline to the people of Gaza, as well as millions of other Palestinian refugees across the region \u2013 in the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria \u2013 would be further threatened. It need not have worried. Western donor states cut their funding anyway, plunging Gaza deeper into calamity.<\/p>\n

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UNRWA lifesaving assistance is about to end following countries decisions to cut their funding to the Agency.<\/p>\n

Our humanitarian operation, on which 2 million people depend as a lifeline in Gaza, is collapsing. I am shocked such decisions are taken based on alleged behavior of a\u2026<\/p>\n

— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) January 27, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n