Aid cuts to 2 million people in Gaza are “collective punishment” – UNRWA

05:06

• Thousands fleeing fighting in Khan Younis have arrived in overcrowded Rafah, where people are sleeping on the street and in tent camps flooded with sewage.
• Cutting a “lifeline” to 2 million people in Gaza is “collective punishment”, says Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA.
• Several countries, including the United States, are reviewing funding to UNRWA after Israel alleged some of its staff were involved in Hamas’s October 7 attacks.
• At least 26,257 people have been killed and 64,797 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from the October 7 Hamas attacks stands at 1,139.

UN warns: “It is not the time” to deprive people in Gaza of assistance

00:05 GMT

The UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths stated that “it is not the time” to deprive people in Gaza of assistance but some western countries have ignored his appeals and suspended funding while Israel continues its attacks.

Martin Griffiths has said that humanitarian assistance to Gaza is “under threat” as Palestinians in Gaza experience “unthinkable” levels of deprivation.

While not explicitly mentioning announcements by several Western nations to suspend UNRWA support, Griffiths said that assistance needs to be scaled up rather than down.

“The people of Gaza have been enduring unthinkable horrors and deprivation for close to four months. Their needs have never been higher – and our humanitarian capacity to assist them has never been under such threat,” Griffiths said in a social media post on Saturday.

“We need to be at full stretch to give the people of Gaza a moment of hope. Now is not the time to let them down.”

In the meantime, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands and Finland, ignoring the UN appeals, have suspended funding following allegations that some staff of the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians were involved in the Oct. Hamas attacks on Israel.

The same countries support Israel’s continuing attacks in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Editorial comment: The countries which have suspended funding are intentionally or unintentionally participating in the collective punishment practised by Israel against the people of Gaza.