UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations chief appointed a British human rights activist on Tuesday to hold out a strategic evaluation of the U.N. company serving to Palestinian refugees to evaluate its influence beneath the”current political, monetary, safety and different constraints.”
Israel has banned the company, often called UNRWA, from working on its territory, however its Palestinian employees have nonetheless been key to delivering help and working medical clinics in Gaza, although Israel has minimize off all humanitarian deliveries since March 2.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric, who introduced the evaluation, stated Ian Martin, a former head of Amnesty Worldwide, would even be wanting on the “penalties and dangers for Palestinian refugees” of UNRWA’s operations.
UNRWA was established by the U.N. Common Meeting in 1949 to offer reduction for Palestinians who fled or had been expelled from their houses earlier than and in the course of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict, which adopted the institution of Israel, in addition to their descendants, till there’s a political resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian battle.
The company has been offering help and companies — together with well being and schooling — to some 2.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Financial institution and east Jerusalem, in addition to 3 million extra in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. This month, Israel ordered six UNRWA faculties in east Jerusalem to shut.
Dujarric harassed that the evaluation shouldn’t be about altering UNRWA’s mandate.
“We’re attempting to see how, on this very complicated setting, UNRWA can finest ship for the Palestine refugees it serves, for the communities it serves,” he informed reporters. “They need to be assisted by a corporation — by UNRWA — that may work in the very best method given all these challenges.”
A Palestinian man extinguishes the fireplace from bulldozers after they had been hit by an Israeli military airstrike in Jabaliya, northern Gaza Strip, on Tuesday, April 22, 2025. Credit score: AP/Jehad Alshrafi
Israel alleged that 19 out of UNRWA’s roughly 13,000 employees in Gaza took half in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, assault in southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 folks and set off the conflict in Gaza. UNRWA stated it fired 9 staffers after an inside U.N. investigation concluded that they might have been concerned, though the proof was not authenticated and corroborated. Israel later alleged that about 100 different Palestinians in Gaza had been Hamas members, however by no means offered any proof to the United Nations.
Israel has maintained that different U.N. businesses can take over from UNRWA, however Secretary-Common Antonio Guterres has repeatedly stated they can’t. Dujarric stated Tuesday in response to a query concerning the Israeli place that the evaluation was solely to attempt to enhance UNRWA.
He stated Martin, who led a strategic evaluation of the U.N. mission in Somalia and was a member of a high-level impartial panel U.N. peace operations, would submit his report in mid-June.
Israel minimize off help deliveries to Gaza to strain Hamas for an additional ceasefire and the discharge of all remaining hostages taken on Oct. 7.
UNRWA’s Commissioner-Common Philippe Lazzarini issued an announcement urging Israel to carry its 50-day siege, saying 2 million folks in Gaza, a majority of them girls and youngsters, “are present process collective punishment.” Israel’s army response to the Oct. 7 assault has killed over 51,000 Palestinians, based on the Gaza well being ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
“Humanitarian help is getting used as a bargaining chip and a weapon of conflict,” Lazzarini stated. “Starvation is spreading and deepening, deliberate and artifical. … The wounded, sick and aged are disadvantaged of medical provides and care.”
