UNRWA Chief Lazzarini Speaks at OIC Foreign Ministers
Istanbul
Your Excellency, Foreign Minister Fidan,
Secretary-General Taha,
Excellencies,
I welcome the opportunity to address you at a time of extraordinary challenges and dangerous escalation in the Middle East and the world.
In Gaza, two million people are being starved.
The newly created, so-called “aid mechanism” is an abomination that humiliates and degrades desperate people.
It is a death-trap, costing more lives than it saves.
Food is weaponized, and Palestinians are dehumanized, without consequence.
This is the culmination of 20 months of horror, inaction and impunity.
Twenty months in which a confined, captive population has been relentlessly bombarded, besieged and displaced.
More than 55,000 people are reported killed, most of them women and children.
Those still alive are shadows of their former selves; their lives forever changed by unspeakable trauma and profound loss.
In the occupied West Bank, Palestinians have been displaced from camps in the north at levels not seen since 1967.
Public infrastructure is systematically destroyed so Palestinians cannot return, and the demography of camps is permanently altered.
Annexation is progressing steadily.
Excellencies,
Across the occupied Palestinian territory, we are witnessing the implementation of a long-standing project to undermine the viability of a Palestinian State, and to separate Palestinians from Palestine.
So great is the desire to strip Palestinians from their refugee status, and to sever their link to the occupied territory, that UNRWA has become an objective of this war.
At least 318 UNRWA personnel have been killed in Gaza since the war began, many with their families.
This January, Israeli legislation came into effect prohibiting UNRWA’s activities in what Israel considers its sovereign territory – including occupied East Jerusalem – and prohibiting contact between Israeli authorities and the Agency.
Consequently, international UNRWA staff have been effectively expelled from the occupied Palestinian territory.
However, our activities continue.
The courage and determination of our Palestinian staff – despite arrests, intimidation and harassment – ensures the delivery of essential services to Palestine Refugees, including primary healthcare and education.
In the dystopian horror that is Gaza, UNRWA still provides more than 15,000 health consultations each day.
We also play a critical role in managing shelters, providing clean water, and removing waste.
The objective of dismantling the Agency also underpins the fierce disinformation campaign spearheaded by Israel.
This campaign targets lawmakers and the public in countries that support UNRWA, strangling our funding for critical services to Palestine Refugees.
Excellencies,
UNRWA’s financial situation is dire.
Without additional funding, I will soon have to take unprecedented decisions affecting our operations across the region.
Palestine Refugees will be impacted most severely.
The loss of UNRWA’s stabilizing effect on a region in turmoil will also be consequential.
In response to the very real possibility of the Agency imploding in the face of extraordinary adversity, the United Nations Secretary-General has requested a strategic assessment of the impact and exercise of UNRWA’s mandate.
The Strategic Assessment will propose how the rights of Palestine Refugees may be protected amid the immense political, financial and operational pressure the Agency is under.
This will require Member States to take bold, decisive, and long overdue action.
Excellencies,
UNRWA is a tremendous asset if what we seek is a just and lasting solution to the question of Palestine and its people.
A genuine, time-bound political process would allow the Agency to finally transition its government-like services to empowered and prepared public institutions serving Palestinians.
In the absence of an orderly transition, the sudden loss or reduction of UNRWA’s services will only deepen suffering and despair across the occupied Palestinian territory.
It might spark unrest in the neighboring countries.
This is something that the region cannot afford, especially now.
I appeal to the Organization for Islamic Cooperation and its Member States to throw their full political and financial weight behind efforts to safeguard Palestine Refugees’ access to protection and essential services.
I urge you to act now, before it is too late for millions of people whose lives and future are in your hands.
Thank you.
https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/statement-unrwa-commissioner-general-philippe-lazzarini-51st-session