UNRWA chief warns of devastating impact of Israeli ban on agency

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Updated 29 January 2025
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UNRWA chief warns of devastating impact of Israeli ban on agency

  • Philippe Lazzarini: ‘To curtail our operations now would sabotage the fragile ceasefire (in Gaza) and deepen the suffering of millions of Palestinians’
  • US ambassador: Washington fully supports ‘Israel’s sovereign decision’

NEW YORK: The commissioner general of the UN Relief and Works Agency issued a stark warning before the UN Security Council on Tuesday, calling on international leaders to intervene in the face of a new Israeli law that is set to cripple the agency’s operations in the Occupied Territories.
Philippe Lazzarini’s warning comes just days after a long-awaited ceasefire took hold in Gaza, offering hope for the millions of Palestinians whose lives have been shattered by almost a year and a half of conflict.
While the ceasefire has brought about the return of hostages and improved humanitarian aid flow, he emphasized that the fragile peace could be jeopardized by legislation passed by the Israeli Knesset that will severely restrict UNRWA’s ability to deliver essential services.
The Israeli law, set to take effect in two days, mandates the cessation of UNRWA’s operations in East Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank, threatening to leave Palestinian refugees without health care, education and emergency relief at a critical time.
UNRWA, which employs 13,000 staff across Gaza and operates 300 premises, has been a cornerstone of life for many Palestinians, providing essential services that many say no other entity can match.
“UNRWA is the largest UN presence in Gaza,” Lazzarini told the UNSC. “Our capacity to provide health care and education, particularly after the devastating losses in Gaza, is irreplaceable.
“To curtail our operations now would sabotage the fragile ceasefire and deepen the suffering of millions of Palestinians.”
Lazzarini’s warning was underscored by alarming statistics: A peer-reviewed study suggests that the death toll in Gaza, reported at 46,000 by the enclave’s Health Ministry, is likely an undercount by more than 40 percent. Most of the victims are women, children and the elderly.
Thousands of survivors are returning to their homes in the decimated north of Gaza, only to find their lives reduced to rubble and their families torn apart, he said.
Since the outbreak of hostilities in October 2023, UNRWA has been a lifeline for Gaza’s population, he added.
The agency has delivered two-thirds of all food assistance, provided shelter to over 1 million displaced individuals, and vaccinated 250,000 children against polio.
Since the ceasefire, UNRWA has accounted for 60 percent of all food entering Gaza, reaching over half a million people daily.
Lazzarini stressed that if the legislation is fully implemented, it would not only destabilize Gaza’s humanitarian situation but also set a dangerous precedent for international law, undermining the credibility of the UN and further eroding trust in the international community.
He pointed out that such actions defy UN resolutions and international legal rulings, including those by the International Court of Justice.
The Israeli government has argued that other entities could replace UNRWA’s services, but Lazzarini rejected this claim, stressing that only the agency has the infrastructure and expertise to deliver the critical services needed by millions of Palestinians.
He also criticized a growing disinformation campaign against UNRWA, funded by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which has attempted to portray the agency as complicit in terrorism.
“These political attacks aim to strip Palestinians of their refugee status and erase their history and identity,” Lazzarini said.
“If UNRWA is no longer able to protect and assist Palestinian refugees, their rights to self-determination won’t vanish — they’ll only become more urgent.”
In his appeal to the international community, Lazzarini called for immediate action to prevent the legislation from taking effect, urging the UNSC to support UNRWA’s continued operations, ensure adequate funding, and facilitate a genuine political transition in the region.
He warned that without urgent intervention, the collapse of UNRWA would not only deepen the humanitarian crisis but also endanger the fragile peace in Gaza.
“The ceasefire must be followed by a political process that ensures the eventual handover of services to empowered Palestinian institutions,” he said. “UNRWA mustn’t be left to implode.”
As the international community grapples with these critical challenges, Lazzarini’s message was clear: The clock is ticking, and decisive action is needed to secure a future of peace and stability for Palestinians.
US Ambassador Dorothy Shea said it is “Israel’s sovereign decision to close UNRWA’s offices in Jerusalem,” and expressed American support for its implementation.  
“UNRWA exaggerating the effects of the laws and suggesting that they’ll force the entire humanitarian response to halt is irresponsible and dangerous,” she added.
“UNRWA isn’t, and never has been, the only option for providing humanitarian assistance in Gaza. Many other agencies have experience and expertise to do this work and have done this work.  
“UNRWA’s work has been tainted and its credibility questioned due to the terrorist ties to Hamas that UNRWA staff had that were exposed as a result of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.”   
With less than 48 hours left before the ban takes effect, the UN is uncertain what the next move will be.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the organization will continue to do whatever it can to support the Palestinian population “that’s entitled to UNRWA’s services.”
He added that “we’re all moving into uncharted and complex waters,” and that the “UNRWA footprint can’t be replaced by other UN agencies.”


Beirut airport to close Sunday during funeral of slain Hezbollah leader

Updated 16 min 31 sec ago
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Beirut airport to close Sunday during funeral of slain Hezbollah leader

  • “The airport will be closed, and takeoffs and landings... will halt on February 23, 2025, from 12:00 p.m. (1000 GMT) until 4:00 pm,” the authority said
  • Qassem at the weekend called for broad participation as a demonstration of the group’s strength

BEIRUT: Beirut airport will close for four hours on Sunday during the funeral of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Lebanon’s civil aviation authority has announced.
“The airport will be closed, and takeoffs and landings... will halt on February 23, 2025, from 12:00 p.m. (1000 GMT) until 4:00 pm,” the authority said in a statement carried by official media on Tuesday.
Nasrallah was killed in a huge Israeli air strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on September 27, as Israel scaled up its campaign against the Iran-backed group following almost a year of cross-border hostilities.
Sunday’s funeral will also be for Hashem Safieddine, a senior Hezbollah figure who had been chosen to succeed Nasrallah, before he too was killed in an Israeli raid in October.
The funeral is to begin at 1:00 p.m. at a sports stadium in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.
It will include a speech by current Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem, and is to be followed by a procession to Nasrallah’s burial site.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said on Monday that Iran “will participate in this ceremony at a high level,” without specifying who would attend.
Qassem at the weekend called for broad participation as a demonstration of the group’s strength.
“We want to transform this funeral into a show of support and an affirmation of (Hezbollah’s) plan and approach, and hold our heads high,” Qassem said.
After decades at the helm of the group once seen as invincible, the killing of the charismatic Nasrallah sent shock waves across Lebanon and the wider region.
Hezbollah has said 79 countries would be involved in the commemoration, whether at an official or “popular” level.
Earlier this month in a security alert about the funeral, the US embassy urged its nationals to avoid the area “which includes the airport.”
Qassem has said Nasrallah would be buried on the outskirts of Beirut “in a plot of land we chose between the old and new airport roads.”
Safieddine will be buried in his hometown of Deir Qanun in southern Lebanon, he added.
Nasrallah had been temporarily buried elsewhere because of security concerns, Qassem said, and the group had also put off the public funeral for security reasons.
A November 27 ceasefire deal put a halt to two months of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah that saw the group weakened and numerous senior commanders killed.


Lebanon presses for full Israeli withdrawal after troops remain in 5 points

Updated 18 February 2025
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Lebanon presses for full Israeli withdrawal after troops remain in 5 points

  • Aoun said Beirut was in contact with truce brokers the United States and France to press Israel to complete its withdrawal
  • In a statement, Aoun, along with Lebanon’s prime minister and parliament speaker, warned the government would ask the UN Security Council to push Israel to leave

KFAR KILA, Lebanon: Lebanese leaders said Beirut was in contact with Washington and Paris to press Israel to fully withdraw from south Lebanon, branding its presence in five points an “occupation” after a ceasefire deadline expired on Tuesday.
The UN called the incomplete pull-out a violation of a Security Council resolution, though it has allowed many displaced residents to return to border villages, many largely destroyed in more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Beirut was in contact with truce brokers the United States and France to press Israel to complete its withdrawal, after an initial late January deadline set under the deal was already extended.
Decision-makers are “unified in adopting the diplomatic option, because nobody wants war,” Aoun said, according to a statement.
Earlier Tuesday, Lebanon said any Israeli presence on its soil constituted an “occupation.”
In a statement, Aoun, along with Lebanon’s prime minister and parliament speaker, warned the government would ask the UN Security Council to push Israel to leave, and said that Lebanese armed forces were ready to assume duties on the border, adding Beirut had “the right to adopt all means” to make Israel withdraw.
In the south, many returned to destroyed or heavily damaged homes, farms and businesses after more than a year of fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah that included two months of all-out war, which halted with the November 27 ceasefire.
“The entire village has been reduced to rubble. It’s a disaster zone,” said Alaa Al-Zein, back in Kfar Kila.
Israel had announced just before the pullout deadline that it would keep troops in “five strategic points” near the border, and on Tuesday its Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said they would withdraw “once Lebanon implements its side of the deal.”
Israel’s army had said it would remain on the five hilltops, overlooking swathes of both sides of the border, “temporarily” to “make sure there’s no immediate threat.”
Lebanon’s army announced it had deployed, starting Monday, in 11 southern border villages and other areas from which Israeli troops have pulled out.
The official National News Agency said two people were found alive in Kfar Kila, three months after contact was lost. One was a Hezbollah fighter thought to have been killed.
The agency also said that “enemy forces” set off a powerful explosion outside the village of Kfarshuba.
In a joint statement, UN envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and the UNIFIL peacekeeping force said that at “the end of the period set” for Israel’s withdrawal and the Lebanese army’s deployment, any further “delay in this process is not what we hoped would happen.”
They said it was a violation of a Security Council resolution that ended a 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
In Lebanon, the cost of reconstruction is expected to reach more than $10 billion, while more than 100,000 people remain displaced, according to the United Nations.
Despite the devastation, returning resident Zein said his fellow villagers were adamant about going home.
“The whole village is returning, we will set up tents and sit on the ground” if need be, he said.
Others were going south to look for the bodies of their relatives under the rubble.
Among them was Samira Jumaa, who arrived in the early hours to look for her brother, a Hezbollah fighter killed in Kfar Kila with others five months ago.
“We have not heard of them until now. We are certain they were martyred,” she said.
“I’ve come to see my brother and embrace the land where my brother and his comrades fought,” she added.
Hezbollah strongholds in south and east Lebanon, as well as in south Beirut, suffered heavy destruction during the hostilities, initiated by Hezbollah in support of ally Hamas during the Gaza war.
Under the ceasefire, Lebanon’s military was to deploy alongside United Nations peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdrew from the south over an initial 60-day period that was later extended to February 18.
Hezbollah was to pull back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle remaining military infrastructure there.
Since the cross-border hostilities began in October 2023, more than 4,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the health ministry.
On the Israeli side of the border, 78 people including soldiers have been killed, according to an AFP tally based on official figures, with an additional 56 troops killed in southern Lebanon during the ground offensive.
Around 60 people have reportedly been killed in Lebanon since the truce began, two dozen of them on January 26 as residents tried to return to border towns on the initial withdrawal deadline.


Villagers in southern Lebanon prepare to return home as Israeli army withdraws under ceasefire deal

Updated 18 February 2025
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Villagers in southern Lebanon prepare to return home as Israeli army withdraws under ceasefire deal

  • Most of the villages waited by the roadside for permission to go and check on their homes but some pushed aside the roadblocks to march in
  • In the border village of Kfar Kila, people were stunned by the amount of destruction, with entire sections of houses wiped out

DEIR MIMAS, Lebanon: Israeli forces withdrew Tuesday from border villages in southern Lebanon under a deadline spelled out in a US-brokered ceasefire agreement that ended the latest Israel-Hezbollah war, but stayed put in five strategic overlook locations inside Lebanon.
Top Lebanese leaders denounced the continued presence of the Israel troops as an occupation and a violation of the deal, maintaining that Israel was required to make a full withdrawal by Tuesday. The troops’ presence is also a sore point with the militant Hezbollah group, which has demanded action from the authorities.
Lebanese soldiers moved into the areas from where the Israeli troops pulled out and began clearing roadblocks set up by Israeli forces and checking for unexploded ordnance. They blocked the main road leading to the villages, preventing anyone from entering while the military was looking for any explosives left behind.
Most of the villages waited by the roadside for permission to go and check on their homes but some pushed aside the roadblocks to march in. Elsewhere, the army allowed the residents to enter.
Many of their houses were demolished during the more than year-long conflict or in the two months after November’s ceasefire agreement, when Israeli forces were still occupying the area.
In the border village of Kfar Kila, people were stunned by the amount of destruction, with entire sections of houses wiped out.
“What I’m seeing is beyond belief. I am in a state of shock,” said Khodo Suleiman, a construction contractor, pointing to his destroyed home on a hilltop.
“There are no homes, no plants, nothing left,” said Suleiman, who had last been in Kfar Kila six months ago. “I am feeling a mixture of happiness and pain.”
In the main village square, Lebanese troops deployed as a military bulldozer removed rubble from the street.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the Israeli army “will stay in a buffer zone in Lebanon in five control posts” to guard against any ceasefire violations by Hezbollah. He also said the army had erected new posts on the Israeli side of the border and sent reinforcements there.
“We are determined to provide full security to every northern community,” Katz said.
However, Lebanon’s three top officials — the country’s president, prime minister and parliament speaker — in a joint statement said that Israel’s continued presence at the five locaions was in violation of the ceasefire agreement. They called on the UN Security Council to take action to force a complete Israeli withdrawal.
“The continued Israeli presence in any inch of Lebanese territory is an occupation, with all the legal consequences that result from that according to international legitimacy,” the statement said.
The Israeli troop presence was also criticized in a joint statement by the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the head of the UN peacekeeping force in the country, Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro.
The two, however, warned that this should not “overshadow the tangible progress that has been made” since the ceasefire agreement.
Near the Lebanese villages of Deir Mimas and Kfar Kila, hundreds of villagers were gathered early on Tuesday morning as an Israeli drone flew overhead.
Atef Arabi, who had been waiting with his wife and two daughters before sunrise, was eager to see what’s left of his home in Kfar Kila.
“I am very happy I am going back even if I find my home destroyed,” said the 36-year-old car mechanic. “If I find my house destroyed I will rebuild it.”
Later on Tuesday, Kfar Kila’s mayor Hassan Sheet told The Associated Press that 90 percent of the village homes are completely destroyed while the remaining 10 percent are damaged. “There are no homes nor buildings standing,” he said, adding that rebuilding will start from scratch.
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon, and the two sides became locked in an escalating conflict that became a full-blown war last September.
More than 4,000 people were killed in Lebanon and more than 1 million were displaced at the height of the conflict, more than 100,000 of whom have not been able to return home. On the Israeli side, dozens of people were killed and some 60,000 are displaced.
Hussein Fares left Kfar Kila in October 2023 for the southern city of Nabatiyeh. When the fighting intensified in September he moved with his family to the city of Sidon where they were given a room in a school housing displaced people.
Kfar Kila saw intense fighting and Israeli troops later detonated many of its homes.
“I have been waiting for a year and the half to return,” said Fares who has a pickup truck and works as a laborer. He said he understands that the reconstruction process will take time.
“I have been counting the seconds for this day,” he said.


Over 200 killed in three-day Sudan paramilitary assault: lawyers

Updated 18 February 2025
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Over 200 killed in three-day Sudan paramilitary assault: lawyers

  • The Emergency Lawyers group, which documents rights abuses, said RSF attacked unarmed civilians in the villages of Al-Kadaris and Al-Khelwat
  • The lawyer group said some residents were shot at while attempting to flee across the Nile River

PORT SUDAN: Sudanese paramilitaries have killed more than 200 people, including women and children, in a three-day assault on villages in the country’s south, a lawyer group monitoring the war said Tuesday.
The Emergency Lawyers group, which documents rights abuses, said the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces attacked unarmed civilians in the villages of Al-Kadaris and Al-Khelwat, in White Nile state.
The RSF carried out “executions, kidnappings, enforced disappearances and property looting” during the assault since Saturday, which also left hundreds wounded or missing, it said.
The lawyer group said some residents were shot at while attempting to flee across the Nile River. Some drowned in the process, with the lawyers calling the attack an act of “genocide.”
Sudan’s army-aligned foreign ministry said the death toll from the RSF attacks so far was 433 civilians, including babies. It called the assault a “horrible massacre.”
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of war crimes, but the paramilitaries have been specifically notorious for committing ethnic cleansing and systematic sexual violence.
The war has killed tens of thousands, displaced over 12 million and created what the International Rescue Committee has called the “biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded.”
White Nile state is currently divided by the warring parties.
The army controls southern parts, including the state capital, Rabak, as well as two major cities and a key military base.
The RSF meanwhile holds northern parts of the state, bordering the capital Khartoum, which include several villages and towns and where the latest attacks took place.
Witnesses from the two villages, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Khartoum, said thousands of residents fled their homes, crossing to the western bank of the Nile following RSF shelling.
A medical source speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity for their safety on Monday said some bodies were lying in the streets while others were killed inside their homes with no one able to reach them.
Fighting has intensified in recent weeks as the army advances in its bid to reclaim full control of the capital from paramilitaries.
The UN’s children agency, UNICEF, said on Sunday that those trapped in areas and around the fighting in Khartoum had reported indiscriminate shooting, looting, and forced displacement, as well as alarming accounts of families being separated, children missing, detained or abducted and sexual violence.
Many children, it added, showed signs of distress having witnessed the events around them.
“This is a living nightmare for children, and it must end,” said Sheldon Yett, UNICEF representative for Sudan.
Elsewhere, RSF shelling and gunfire shook the streets this week in a famine-hit camp near North Darfur’s besieged capital El-Fasher in the country’s west.
Hundreds of families fled the violence to neighboring towns with civilians saying that they were robbed and attacked on the roads.
The Zamzam camp, home to between 500,000 and a million people according to aid groups, was the first place famine was declared in Sudan last August under a UN-backed assessment.


Israel confirms planned handover of six living Gaza hostages, four bodies this week

Family and supporters of hostages protest to mark the 500 days since Oct. 7, 2023.
Updated 18 February 2025
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Israel confirms planned handover of six living Gaza hostages, four bodies this week

  • Four hostage bodies would be returned to Israel on Thursday, ahead of four others next week

JERUSALEM: Israel said Tuesday it expects the bodies of four hostages held in Gaza to be returned on Thursday, ahead of the release of six living captives on Saturday, confirming an earlier announcement from Hamas.
During indirect negotiations in Cairo between Israel and the Palestinian militant group, “agreements were reached according to which the six living hostages (due for release under) the first phase will be released on Saturday,” said a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, referring to the truce agreement that went into effect last month.

It added that four hostage bodies would be returned to Israel on Thursday, ahead of four others next week.