The UN’s aid agency in Gaza is on the brink of collapse, its head has said, after nine nations including the US and UK decided to suspend funding over allegations that several agency workers participated in the Hamas attack against Israel.
The Foreign Office said in a statement that the UK was “appalled” by allegations that UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency) staff were involved in the 7 October attack, “a heinous act of terrorism” that the UK government has repeatedly condemned.
The head of the main U.N. aid agency in the war-battered Gaza Strip warned late Saturday that its work is collapsing after nine countries decided to suspend funding over allegations that several agency employees participated in the deadly Hamas attack on Israel four months ago.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, said he was shocked such decisions were taken as “famine looms” in the Israel-Hamas war. “Palestinians in Gaza did not need this additional collective punishment,” he wrote on X. “This stains all of us.”
The suspension of funding threatens its operations in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan – where the agency provides hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees with education, healthcare, welfare services, financial assistance, infrastructure projects and emergency response.
Critics have said the funding cuts amount to the collective punishment of Palestinian refugees, many of whom rely on UNRWA relief and services to survive.
More than 100 UNRWA employees have been killed since Israel’s offensive on the strip began, making it the deadliest conflict for the UN yet in such a short amount of time.
26 January 2024
Statement by South Africa welcoming the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice against Israel
Today marks a decisive victory for the international rule of law and a significant milestone in the search for justice for the Palestinian people. In a landmark ruling, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has determined that Israel’s actions in Gaza are plausibly genocidal and has indicated provisional measures on that basis. For the implementation of the international rule of law, the decision is a momentous one. South Africa thanks the Court for its swift ruling.
The United Nations Security Council will now be formally notified of the Court’s order pursuant to Article 41(2) of the Court’s Statute. The veto power wielded by individual states cannot be permitted to thwart international justice, not least in light of the ever-worsening situation in Gaza brought about by Israel’s acts and omissions in violation of the Genocide Convention.
Third States are now on notice of the existence of a serious risk of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. They must, therefore, also act independently and immediately to prevent genocide by Israel and to ensure that they are not themselves in violation of the Genocide Convention, including by aiding or assisting in the commission of genocide. This necessarily imposes an obligation on all States to cease funding and facilitating Israel’s military actions, which are plausibly genocidal.
Above all else, the provisional measures are directly binding on Israel, which is required pursuant to the Court’s order and to the Genocide Convention itself, to stop all acts by it that are plausibly genocidal, such as those raised by South Africa in its Application and request for the indication of provisional measures. There is no credible basis for Israel to continue to claim that its military actions are in full compliance with international law, including the Genocide Convention, having regard to the Court’s ruling.
South Africa sincerely hopes that Israel will not act to frustrate the application of this Order, as it has publicly threatened to do, but that it will instead act to comply with it fully, as it is bound to do.
South Africa will continue to act within the institutions of global governance to protect the rights, including the fundamental right to life, of Palestinians in Gaza – which continue to remain at urgent risk including from Israeli military assault, starvation and disease – and to obtain the fair and equal application of international law to all, in the interest of our collective humanity. Notably, South Africa will continue to do everything within its power to preserve the existence of the Palestinian people as a group, to end all acts of apartheid and genocide against the Palestinian people and to walk with them towards the realisation of their collective right to self-determination, for, as Nelson Mandela momentously declared, “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”.
The indication by this Court of provisional measures pursuant to the Genocide Convention marks a significant historical step towards that goal.
For more information: Clayson Monyela (Head of Public Diplomacy) +27828845974
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The international court of justice on Friday ordered Israel to prevent acts of genocide by its troops in Gaza, and to allow more aid into the besieged territory. The court, which is the UN’s highest judicial body, stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire. But it was a victory for the Palestinians, and for the global south in general, in that Israel is being held accountable for its military actions for the first time, and by one of the world’s most important courts.
By allowing the case brought by South Africa to go forward and calling on Israel to comply with the genocide convention – and to report back to the court within a month – the ruling raises the stakes on Israel’s western backers to pressure Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to rein in its devastating invasion and bombardment of Gaza. The ruling is embarrassing to Joe Biden and his top aides, especially the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, who described South Africa’s case as “meritless” a few weeks ago.
Arab Americans are angry.
And they let United States President Joe Biden know it when they shunned his campaign manager as she visited Michigan to reach out to their communities this week.
Many elected Arab-American officials, including municipal leaders and state legislators, declined to meet with Julie Chavez Rodriguez, arguing that as long as there are mass killings in Gaza, they will not discuss the elections.
“It’s unfathomable at this point in time that we’re trying to talk about electoral politics with a genocide unfolding,” said Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, a Detroit suburb.
“This is not a time to talk about politics. This is a time for our humanity to be recognised, and for us to be sitting down with decision-makers and policymakers to talk about a change of course of what’s unfolding overseas. And it does not happen with campaign staff.”
Arab-American local officials in Southeast Michigan told Al Jazeera that their constituents are furious and frustrated with Biden’s policies in Gaza – anger that could prove detrimental to the president’s reelection chances.
U.S. President Joe Biden narrowly won Michigan in 2020, but his reelection campaign's trip to the key swing state on Friday made clear that his support for Israel's war on the Gaza Strip is angering Arab American and Muslim voters.
Assad Turfe, a deputy Wayne County executive, was coordinating a Friday afternoon meeting with Biden's delegation, led by campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez. He reached out to over 10 Arab and Muslim leaders in the Dearborn area.
"As the community got to learn about the meeting, there was definitely a lot of outrage and, ultimately, the decision was made to cancel the meeting," he told The Detroit News, adding that the cancellation was "in the best interest of the community."
Turfe also publicly warned the Democrat's campaign that "unless something drastic happens, you have lost the Arab American and Muslim community."
"At this point, from what I can see, there's no winning them over. That was the idea of the meeting," he said. "Until there's a cease-fire, the overall consensus in the community is they're not welcome here, essentially."
CNN filmed rare footage Saturday of Palestinian men detained by Israeli forces in Gaza and brought across the border to Israel — witnessing the men blindfolded and barefoot, with their hands bound behind their backs.
The Israel Defense Forces said the men are “suspected of terrorist activity and were arrested in Gaza and transferred to Israel for further interrogation.”
Israeli soldiers continue to film themselves as they destroy Gaza and mock Palestinians and post the videos on popular social media apps.
In one of the latest videos published from the besieged Strip, a soldier can be seen flashing the sign of the horn and smiling as yet another neighbourhood is blown up by explosives planted inside homes by the Israeli military.
In another video posted on TikTok, which appears to have been filmed from an armoured vehicle, an Israeli bulldozer can be seen destroying a house with a white flag in front of it.
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A Conversation With Jeh Johnson1 day ago
