Embattled UN Agency Warns Its Aid Operation In Gaza Is 'Collapsing' Over Wave Of Funding Cuts
HuffPost
The warning came a day after the agency's chief announced he had fired and was investigating several employees over allegations they participated in the Oct. 7 attack.
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — 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 cut funding over allegations that several agency employees had participated in the deadly Hamas attack against 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 ongoing Israel-Hamas war. “Palestinians in Gaza did not need this additional collective punishment,” he wrote on X. “This stains all of us.”
His warning came a day after he announced he had fired and was investigating several agency employees over allegations that they participated in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war. The United States, which said 12 agency employees were under investigation, immediately said it is suspending funding, followed by several other countries, including Britain, Italy and Finland.
The agency, which has 13,000 employees in Gaza, most of them Palestinians, is the main organization aiding Gaza’s population amid the humanitarian disaster. More than 2 million of the territory’s 2.3 million people depend on it for “sheer survival,” including food and shelter, Lazzarini said, warning this lifeline can “collapse any time now.”
The Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, destroyed vast swaths of Gaza and displaced nearly 85% of the territory’s 2.3 million people. The Hamas attack in southern Israel killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and about 250 hostages were taken.
It comes two weeks after flash floods in Valencia and other parts of the country killed more than 220 people and destroyed thousands of homes.
The teenager was healthy before developing symptoms and is not known to have any contact with infected animals, health officials said.
Images online showed people damaging property and setting firecrackers. A police vehicle was later burned out in a nearby street and police said they suspect arson.
Afghanistan has had the highest number of children made homeless by climate disasters of any country as of the end of 2023, according to a report.
New Israeli strikes have killed dozens of people including children in Lebanon and northern Gaza.
The Dutch capital imposed the ban following attacks by youth on fans of an Israeli soccer club, as well as anti-Palestinian behavior and chants by those fans.
Qatar officials told Israel and Hamas that it can't continue to mediate “as long as there is a refusal to negotiate a deal in good faith."
Experts called the humanitarian situation throughout the Gaza Strip “extremely grave and rapidly deteriorating."
The Santiago-based organization is asking the government to recognize them legally as a religious association.
Some 62 people were arrested over the violence following the Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv.
When a volcanic eruption buried the ancient city of Pompeii, the last desperate moments of its citizens were preserved for centuries.