(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
U.N. Agency for Palestinians Imperiled by Terrorism Charges [1]
['Patrick Kingsley', 'Ronen Bergman']
Date: 2024-01-29
Leaders of the largest United Nations agency in Gaza warned on Monday that it may soon run out of money as new allegations emerged about Hamas’s influence on the organization.
As U.N. officials fretted over the future of UNRWA, the main aid agency for Palestinians, Israeli officials debated whether it made sense to publicly air accusations that a group of the agency’s workers were involved in the Oct. 7 terror attack. Some Israeli military leaders believed it was a mistake to unleash a furor, according to three Israeli officials involved in the discussions, because the agency’s collapse would leave a huge administrative and logistical vacuum in the middle of a humanitarian crisis.
UNRWA plays a crucial role in Gaza — distributing food, water and medicine — and it is unclear who would fill the vacuum were it to collapse. Most of Gaza’s 2.2 million people are displaced from their homes, many are sheltering in centers and schools run by the agency, and it helps allocate the aid that arrives in Gaza each day.
Israel has charged that at least 12 employees of the agency — the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees — participated in the Oct. 7 attack and that as many 1,300 employees are members of the group. The Oct. 7 assault ended with roughly 1,200 people dead and another 240 taken hostage, according to Israeli estimates.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/29/world/middleeast/unrwa-israel-gaza-terrorism.html
Published and (C) by Common Dreams
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0..
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/
