JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel has imposed financial restrictions on the main U.N. agency providing aid in the Gaza Strip, preventing food shipments for 1.1 million Palestinians from reaching the war-torn enclave. was blocked, the agency's director announced Friday.
This restriction deepened the crisis between Israel and UNRWA. UNRWA's operations are under threat after Israel accused some of its staff of taking part in the October 7 attack that triggered the war in Gaza. In response to these accusations, major donor countries, including the United States, suspended funding to the UN organization, leaving its future in doubt.
UNRWA Director Philippe Lazzarini said on Friday that a food convoy donated by Turkey had been anchored in the Israeli port city of Ashdod for several weeks. The agency said an Israeli contractor they were working with received a call from Israeli customs authorities “ordering them not to process any UNRWA goods.”
The outage comes despite an estimated 25% of households in Gaza facing devastating hunger. (enough to feed one month) is stuck.
The World Food Program warned on Friday that Gaza could fall into famine as early as May. The United Nations Food Agency defines hunger as “when 30% of children are malnourished, one in five households face severe food insecurity, and two in 10,000 people die from hunger or malnutrition.” ” is defined.
Israel declared war in response to the October 7 Hamas attack, which besieged Gaza, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. The war has created a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with only a small amount of humanitarian aid arriving in the Gaza Strip each day.
Israel has long strongly criticized UNRWA, accusing it of tolerating or collaborating with Hamas and perpetuating the 76-year-old Palestinian refugee crisis. UNRWA, which supports some 6 million Palestinians who were uprooted from their families in the 1948 war over the establishment of Israel, denies the charges. But tensions are only set to rise further following recent claims by Israel.
Juliet Touma, the agency's communications director, said a Leumi bank account that UNWRA had held for decades was also frozen this week. Touma further stated that the Israeli Customs Authority has informed UNRWA that it will no longer grant tax exemptions.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich tweeted Thursday that “the State of Israel does not give tax benefits to terrorist aides.”
Smotrich, a far-right ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, did not respond to requests for comment.
The agency was able to reroute other aid shipments through Egypt's Port Said, but Lazzarini said Friday that the holdup meant further difficulties in the already difficult mission of distributing aid to Gaza. I warned you. Approximately 80% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forced to flee due to the war.
UNWRA is the main provider of aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but Israeli shelling and fighting between Israel and Hamas have made much of the territory too dangerous for aid convoys to cross. . The United Nations World Food Program has been unable to reach aid to an estimated 300,000 Palestinians who remain in the northern half of the Gaza Strip, where food insecurity is worst.
Lazzarini said efforts are instead focused on the 1.3 million Palestinian refugees sheltering in makeshift tent camps in the Egyptian border city of Rafah, where they are trying to prevent theft. Lazzarini said they are relying on local police to escort aid vehicles to distribution points. But that is becoming increasingly difficult as Israeli warplanes bomb targets in the city.
Lazzarini said airstrikes have killed eight police officers in the city over the past four days, making police reluctant to continue providing support. Lazzarini said three strikes occurred near UNWRA clinics. Israeli media reported the police escort as Hamas attempting to seize aid for its own use.
Lazzarini said the police the agency works with are not affiliated with armed groups. Agency spokeswoman Juliet Touma said the police escort was necessary to prevent people from throwing rocks at the convoy or attempting to steal relief items.
Israel claimed last month that 12 aid agency workers took part in a Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7. Several countries withdrew funding worth about $440 million, nearly half of the agency's annual budget.
Two United Nations investigations are underway, including an independent investigation announced this week. The review, led by France's former foreign minister, is expected to focus on how French authorities remain neutral and how they respond to allegations of failure to do so. Coronana's team will examine whether the system works and how it can be improved.
Lazzarini said Friday that he immediately fired the 10 workers, rather than suspending them, without first investigating the evidence against them. Two other people had been killed by the time suspicions surfaced. Mr Lazzarini said there was too much pressure on the organization to do anything else, making it difficult to investigate employees in the current situation.
“I couldn't risk it because I knew the organization was under intense and ugly attack…I could have suspended him, but I fired him,” he said.
