UNRWA provides emergency assistance to just over one million Palestine refugees, or about 75 per cent of all Palestine refugees in Gaza, who lack the financial means to cover their basic food.
Keystone-SDA
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening: Lazzarini: no alternative to UNRWA in Gaza
The only alternative to the UN Palestinian agency’s work in Gaza is to allow Israel to run services there, Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner-General, told reporters in Geneva on Monday.
“There is no plan B within the United Nations family, because there is no other agency capable of providing the same activities,” Lazzarini told reporters in Geneva on Monday.
External Content
“If you are talking about bringing in a truck with food, you will certainly find an alternative”, but “the answer is no” when it comes to education and primary health care, Lazzarini, a Swiss national, added.
In October, the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, decided to ban UNRWA from operating on Israeli soil and from coordinating with the Israeli authorities. The two laws will take effect 90 days after their adoption, according to the Knesset.
No explanation from Israel
Lazzarini explained that the agency he heads had “not received any official communication on how Israel intends” to implement the ban.
He called on the international community to act to prevent these laws from being applied. But if they are implemented, “it means that we will no longer be able to operate in Gaza, (…) coordinate our movements, do deconfliction and therefore the environment will have to be far too dangerous”.
For UNRWA staff, there is a fear of “job insecurity, but beyond that, there is a real fear that any one of them could be … arrested”, he said.
“I have drawn the attention of the member states that now the clock is ticking … We have to stop or prevent the implementation of this bill,” he told reporters, saying there is no alternative to the agency’s services in Gaza besides allowing Israel to take them over.
Accusations without proof
The Israeli authorities have long been highly critical of the UN agency. Their relations worsened after the start of the war in Gaza. Israel accused some UNRWA staff of taking part in the attack perpetrated on its soil on October 7 2023 by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
According to the UN, Israel has never provided any evidence to support these claims. Doubts about nine UNRWA employees led to their dismissal.
Translated from French by DeepL/sb
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
What factors should be taken into account when inheriting Swiss citizenship abroad?
Should there be a limit to the passing on of Swiss citizenship? Or is the current practice too strict and it should still be possible to register after the age of 25?
Is your place of origin, your Heimatort, important to you?
Every Swiss citizen has a Heimatort, a place of origin, but many have never visited theirs. What’s your relationship with your Heimatort? What does it mean to you?
Trump tariffs: ‘I’m a bit perplexed’, says former US ambassador to Switzerland
This content was published on
The former US ambassador to Switzerland, Edward McMullen, says he is optimistic for the Alpine country with regard to the 31% tariff on imports imposed by US President Donald Trump.
Swiss Federal Court upholds Beny Steinmetz’s bribery conviction
This content was published on
Switzerland's highest court has upheld the conviction of French-Israeli mining magnate Beny Steinmetz for bribery of foreign public officials.
This content was published on
The Trump administration has imposed a 31% tariff on imports from Switzerland. Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter has warned against "giving in to alarmism" in an interview published on Saturday,
This content was published on
Scientists have shown that bonobos combine their calls into complex sound sequences that resemble combinations of human words.
This content was published on
US parliamentarians have threatened the UN Human Rights Council with sanctions similar to those against the International Criminal Court (ICC).
This content was published on
Thanks to abundant snowfall, lift operators benefited from increased visitor numbers, with the number of guests jumping by 12% year-on-year.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.