One year after Hamas' attack on Israel and the resulting military response - now extending to Lebanon - senior UN officials warned the Security Council today that efforts to dismantle the United Nations' presence in Gaza and its surrounds would be disastrous for the people in need there, as speakers urged the Council to act.
"Gaza is unrecognizable," said Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), detailing the dire situation in the Strip. Emphasizing that children have not been spared, he observed that, "while Palestinians are no strangers to loss", the dispossession of education is new. "We cannot afford to lose an entire generation and sow the seeds for future hatred and extremism," he underscored. "That is why UNRWA - beyond its life-saving operations - has resumed some learning activities in Gaza," he reported, detailing efforts to provide psychosocial services and to teach reading, writing and basic arithmetic.
Also detailing the Agency's emergency polio-vaccination campaign - which vaccinated more than 500,000 children together with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) - he stressed: "The need for the Agency's services in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon has never been greater." Yet, "we have never been under fiercer attack", he noted. Blatant disregard for international humanitarian law is crippling the humanitarian response in Gaza - "the most dangerous place in the world for aid workers", he said - pointing to the killing of Agency staff, the destruction of its buildings, shrinking operational space and efforts in the Knesset to end UNRWA's operations.
"These attacks set a grave precedent for other conflict situations where Governments may wish to eliminate an inconvenient UN presence," he said, urging the Council to decide "to which extent it will tolerate acts that strike at the heart of multilateralism and compromise international peace and security". Either the 15-nation organ can uphold the Charter of the United Nations and enforce international law without exception, "or we can concede that the post-World War II rules-based international order is at an end", he stated.
Echoing that was Lisa Doughten, Director of the Finance and Partnerships Division of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, who said that ongoing legislation to stop UNRWA's activities would be disastrous for the provision of aid and essential services to millions of Palestinians. "If approved, such [Israeli] legislation would be diametrically opposed to the UN Charter and in violation of Israel's obligations under international law," she stressed. Detailing the reality on the ground in Gaza, she reported: "Unfortunately, much of what I am about to say mirrors what we reported a month ago - widespread suffering persists while the humanitarian situation worsens."
Spotlighting the consequences for women and children, she relayed UNRWA's reports that 10 children are losing one or both of their legs each day in the Strip. "Gaza is home to the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history," she said, also noting that women there are three times more likely to miscarry or die from childbirth. "We cannot claim ignorance to what is happening - nor can we afford to look away," she emphasized. She therefore repeated the call for the Council and Member States to act, adding: "These atrocities must end."
In the ensuing discussion, Member States underscored UNRWA's indispensable and irreplaceable role in providing humanitarian assistance. Japan's delegate recalled that his country has been UNRWA's partner since 1953 - even before it joined the UN. "The Agency must be protected," he stressed.
Some speakers - including the United States' representative - also sounded alarm over legislation before the Knesset that could alter UNRWA's legal status. "This legislative proposal reflects the significant distrust between Israel and UNRWA," she observed. Israel must provide additional information regarding the allegation that Hamas is misusing UNRWA facilities, while the Agency needs to address these concerns. "It is in no one's interest for the neutrality of UNRWA personal to remain in doubt," she added.
Going further, the representative of the Russian Federation said that, if the bills before the Knesset are adopted, they will threaten the prospects of providing humanitarian assistance to Palestinian refugees in neighbouring Arab States.
Calling UNRWA the backbone of the humanitarian operations in Gaza, Guyana's representative said that it "continues to operate with a sword of Damocles dangling over its head". She urged the UN and "all peace-loving" countries to not allow Israel to shutter the Agency. Further stating that the war in Gaza will set young people's education back by up to five years and will create a generation of "permanently traumatized Palestinian youth", she stressed: "The implications of this setback for development cannot be overemphasized."
"Silence has become more than mere complicity - it is active participation in these crimes," underscored Algeria's representative, adding: "As we witness this barbarity, we must acknowledge that it is a glimpse into the future." Stating that "those who remain silent or try to justify today cannot claim to defend the rule of law tomorrow", adding: "Because there will be no law except the law of the jungle." Urging the Council to act decisively to "preserve what remains of its credibility", he warned that, if it does not, "the Middle East will be engulfed in an unprecedented war".
The representative of Mauritania, speaking for the Arab Group, echoed that warning, urging all possible measures "to save whoever is left" in Gaza and "to save whatever is left of the credibility of this Council and the UN as a whole". Otherwise, this war "will become a full-out war that will ravage the region and the whole world", he said. Türkiye's representative, similarly, urging the Council to enforce an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon, also called on that organ to protect UNRWA. "The Agency exists because a political solution does not," he emphasized.
The representative of Switzerland, Council President for October, spoke in her national capacity to point out that UNRWA is the largest humanitarian actor in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. She said that, following the first phase of the polio-vaccination campaign, the UN and its specialized agencies - including WHO and UNICEF - have demonstrated that they can fulfil their humanitarian aid mission.
"Israel must do much more to avoid civilian casualties," stressed the representative of the United Kingdom, recalling that her Government has restored UNRWA's funding. And while States should continue pushing for reginal de-escalation, she said they should not lose sight of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. "One year of war is a year too many - we cannot afford to delay peace any longer," urged Malta's representative.
Meanwhile, the representative of China, observing that "so-called diplomatic efforts" have been going in circles for the past five months, recalled that the United States advanced a ceasefire initiative in May that it claimed Israel had already accepted. Nevertheless, he stated: "We certainly cannot lose faith in genuine diplomacy." Mozambique's representative, concurring, also called on States to intensify diplomatic efforts and bring all parties to the negotiating table.
"We should move forward in our reflection on what needs to change in order for the peoples of this region to live in peace and security for a change," said Slovenia's representative, similarly urging a return to the path of diplomacy. France's representative, on that, called on those present to immediately "work towards the creation of a Palestinian State".
This position was expressed by many Council Members, including the representatives of Sierra Leone, Ecuador and the Republic of Korea, who highlighted the key role of the two-State solution in attaining durable peace in the Middle East. "If there are parties who believe that the two-State solution is not a viable path, they will have to answer as to what is a better alternative," observed the delegate of the Republic of Korea, adding: "Gaza is not a chess board, nor are the civilians remaining there chess pieces."
"You keep repeating yourselves, and one country is not listening to you," the Permanent Observer for the State of Palestine pointed out, adding: "You don't have teeth, you are not using the tools available to you in order to make them listen to you." Stating that Israel's unprecedented attacks against the UN, its Secretary-General and UNRWA must be understood in the context of its desire to seize control of Gaza and force it into submission, he observed: "If your aim is to make Gaza unliveable, then you must attack the backbone of the humanitarian response in Gaza."
Noting that the same failure to stop Israeli atrocities in Palestine is being repeated in Lebanon, he asked: "Did you grow accustomed to our death?" A firefighter does not negotiate with an arsonist; he prevents him from spreading the fire - a fire "now threatening to engulf our entire region", he said. "The outrage your countries display, the solidarity they demonstrate every single day in the streets, need to turn into an unstoppable wave to put out the fire," he said; otherwise, "everything else we are trying to do and say in this Chamber will be meaningless".
Israel's representative, for his part, stated: "If any Council members want the discussion to be productive, every conversation should centre around a simple truth - the future of Gaza must be a future without Hamas." Hamas has exploited the suffering of Palestinians, he said, "using the misery in Gaza as a propaganda tool while they line their pockets and boost their arsenals". Stressing that his country imposes no restrictions on humanitarian aid, he said that 82 per cent of all requests for humanitarian coordination have been approved and implemented.
"We are willing and able to work on the ground," he emphasized, urging those present to then "compare our efforts to the failures of UNRWA", which has allowed Hamas to infiltrate its ranks to the point where the Agency "is simply beyond repair". He also insisted that "while Israel fights to protect and uplift civilians, UNRWA leaves them and allows them to suffer". However, "the real evils - Hamas, Hizbullah and their puppet-masters in Tehran - continue to sow terror and death". He called on the Council to address "the deeper disease that has plagued the region for too long".
Taking the floor a second time as the meeting drew to a close, the Permanent Observer for the State of Palestine said: "I am not asking [the Israeli Government] to condemn the killing of Palestinian civilians. I am telling your Government to stop killing them."
