What would Israel do without UNRWA?

[Violet_Crumble]

Peter Hansen, the commissioner-general of the UN Relief and Works Agency in the territories, is being persecuted for having spoken the truth: Members of Hamas work in UNRWA. The Canadian Foreign Affairs Department is concerned and the Israeli Foreign Ministry is not upset over the "revelation." Two days after the broadcast of aerial photos that allegedly show, according to Israel, Palestinians loading a Qassam rocket into a UNRWA ambulance, Hansen's words could strengthen Israeli accusations that "UNRWA is collaborating with terrorists."

But the Israeli assault on UNRWA could turn out to be a double-edged sword, if it leads to a cutback in the donations upon which the organization's budget depends. Because UNRWA is one of the most important safety nets the international community has spread out under Israel, which, as an occupying power, has been unwilling to recognize its responsibility for the occupied civilian population. For the past three years, the UN has been regularly providing food aid to about half the Palestinian population, which is in a state of "food insecurity." UNRWA alone provides regular food aid to about 1.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

World Bank studies show that the direct reason for the collapse of the Palestinian economy and the scope of Palestinian poverty is the Israeli policy of putting drastic restrictions on movement within the territories. The UN food aid is preventing outbreaks of disease and the spread of malnutrition. How would Israel's UN ambassador, who is calling for Hansen's removal, respond to reports of malnutrition of an African-type scale, if not outright hunger, in the territories that Israel controls?

UNRWA is currently the body most concerned with finding new housing for thousands of refugees made homeless by Israel's home demolitions in the Gaza Strip. In these very days, when Israel Defense Forces bulldozers are causing people to flee their homes in the Jabalya refugee camp, UNRWA - along with the relatives of those affected - is mobilizing to provide initial aid in the form of food, textbooks, kitchen appliances and medicines - everything that was lost to the teeth of the Israeli machinery. After that, it will also supervise and coordinate the rebuilding of the houses. Just as it is doing in Jenin, Rafah and Khan Yunis, and thereby preventing a deepening of the Palestinian social crisis, as well as sparing Israel from having to give an accounting under international law for the harm done to the civilian population under its occupation.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/485500.html

[krkaufman]

1. What?!!? Do *they* want to drill there now, too? n/t