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Following the serious allegations that several staff working for the UN agency assisting Palestine refugees (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip were involved in the 7 October terror attacks in southern Israel which has led numerous states to temporarily suspend their payment to the aid organization, the World Health Organization (WHO) today (30 January) appealed to donors “not to suspend their funding to UNRWA at this critical moment. Cutting of funding will only hurt the people of Gaza who desperately needs support”.
When briefing journalists at the UN in Geneva, WHO’s spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said that “criminal activity can never go unpunished. But the discussion right now is much of a distraction from what's really going on every day, every hour, every minute in Gaza. It's a distraction from close to 27,000 deaths by now, out of which 70 per cent are women and children.”
Mr. Lindmeier added that “it's a distraction from preventing an entire population from access to clean water, food, shelter. It's a distraction from preventing electricity to come into Gaza for more than 100 days.”
In addition to its programmes in the Gaza Strip, UNRWA provides vital humanitarian aid to Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and in the West Bank including East Jerusalem.
In the Gaza Strip, the agency is providing lifesaving aid to over two million civilians, operating shelters for over one million and providing food, water and healthcare services.
Mr. Lindmeier reminded of a very dire situation where the “food and water situation is extremely bad, food cut off in Gaza since more than 100 days, fresh water supplies are cut off, water is mixed with wastewater”. Also, the pumping stations are not working because of a lack of fuel and the population is at the border of famine.
“We had a convoy just this morning trying to reach Nasser Hospital with patients, health care staff, everybody. They are needing food, but the very needy population already before basically took the supplies - as we can call it - this was a self-distribution of supplies, which only shows how dire the needs are,” said the WHO spokesperson.
According to the latest report of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), hostilities were particularly intense in Khan Younis, with heavy fighting reported near Nasser and Al Amal hospitals. There are also reports of Palestinians fleeing to the southern town of Rafah, which is already overcrowded, despite the lack of safe passage.
OCHA’s spokesperson Jens Laerke emphasized that “UNRWA has not stopped working, UNRWA continues to work. It's the pipeline of funding that is in danger while it’s irreplaceable in the humanitarian operation.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will host a meeting today (30 January) with major UNRWA donors in New York to issue an urgent plea to keep lifesaving funds flowing.
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