Phillippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), called Israel’s demolition of his agency’s offices in occupied East Jerusalem an “unprecedented attack” and a “new level of open and deliberate defiance of international law” by Israel.
The Israeli government has been accused by the Palestinian Authority of preventing the return of tens of thousands of Palestinians who were forced out of their homes in the West Bank during Operation Iron Wall, which began in January as a sweeping “anti-terrorism” campaign.
Israel’s genocide in Gaza continues, despite the U.S.-backed ceasefire, as the Israelis continue to inflict conditions on the Palestinian population that are “calculated to bring about their physical destruction,” Amnesty International said in a new report.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion last week demanding that Israel allow UN agencies to operate inside Gaza to help deliver humanitarian aid to the population amid reports that Israel has been slow walking essential shipments.
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, announced last week that nearly 400,000 Palestinians have been displaced since the Hamas ceasefire with Israel collapsed and the IDF restarted its brutal bombing and starvation campaign.
Top aid organizations told reporters last week that Israel has rejected most attempts to coordinate the shipment of humanitarian goods into Gaza, as food stores inside the enclave diminish—with just days of flour remaining to keep bakeries running inside the enclave.
Israeli forces continue to kill starving Palestinians as Washington insists it is working on a new ceasefire deal.
The U.S., once again, rejected a UN General Assembly resolution that demanded a permanent ceasefire in Gaza between the IDF and Hamas and the release of the remaining Israelis still held hostage inside the battered enclave.
Israel’s vote last month to ban UNRWA from any of its territory put the lives of Palestinians suffering in Gaza in “unchartered territory” because the agency’s humanitarian work has been called “indispensable.”
Jan Egeland, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, returned home from a brief trip to Gaza last week and said the suffering that he witnessed was “almost unparalleled” and he saw “scene after scene of absolute despair,” according to The Guardian.