GENEVA: Chaos is taking hold in Gaza as smuggling bands form and add to the difficulties in delivering aid, the head of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency said on Tuesday.
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said it had become “excruciating” to deliver aid and voiced concerns that such conditions would impact efforts to counter the high famine risk confirmed by a global hunger monitor’s report on Tuesday.
“Basically, we are confronted nowadays with a near total breakdown of law and order,” Lazzarini told reporters, blaming in part an increase in gangs who are attacking aid trucks in the hopes of finding smuggled cigarettes stashed among aid supplies. “It’s becoming more and more complicated (to deliver aid),” he added.
Local police are refusing to escort aid convoys for fear of being killed, he added, while humanitarian truck drivers were regularly being threatened or assaulted.
Among the other challenges, he named a near-drought in gasoline supplies which brought the UNRWA vehicle fleet to a halt on Monday. Israel vets fuel shipments into Gaza and has long maintained that there is a risk they are diverted to Hamas.
“We need sustainable, meaningful, uninterrupted aid in the Gaza Strip if we want to reverse the hunger situation,” Lazzarini said, adding that the operating environment is not conducive to doing so.
Israel, which launched its Gaza military operation after deadly Hamas attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, says it has expanded efforts to facilitate aid flows into Gaza and blames aid agencies for distribution problems inside the enclave.
Established in 1949 following the first Arab-Israeli war, UNRWA provides services including schooling, primary health care and humanitarian aid in Gaza and the region.
Earlier this year, 16 countries paused payments to the agency following Israel’s claims that some UNRWA staff were linked to Palestinian armed groups.
Lazzarini said all but two of those countries, the United States and Britain, had since resumed financing after a
review
of the agency’s neutrality showed Israel had yet to provide evidence for its accusations.
It now has enough funding to finance operations until the end of August, he added.
Gaza suffers near total breakdown of law and order, UNRWA chief says
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Gaza suffers near total breakdown of law and order, UNRWA chief says
- Local police are refusing to escort aid convoys for fear of being killed, Lazzarini added, while humanitarian truck drivers were regularly being threatened or assaulted
- Among the other challenges, he named a near-drought in gasoline supplies which brought the UNRWA vehicle fleet to a halt on Monday
Iran, UK foreign ministers in rare direct contact
- A UK government source said Cooper “emphasized the need for a diplomatic solution on Iran’s nuclear program and raised a number of other issues”
TEHRAN: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has spoken by phone with his British counterpart Yvette Cooper, an Iranian foreign ministry statement said on Saturday, in a rare case of direct contact between the two countries.
The ministry said that in Friday’s call the ministers “stressed the need to continue consultations at various levels to strengthen mutual understanding and pursue issues of mutual interest.”
A UK government source said Cooper “emphasized the need for a diplomatic solution on Iran’s nuclear program and raised a number of other issues.”
The source in London said Cooper raised the case of Lindsay and Craig Foreman, a British couple detained in Iran for nearly a year on suspicion of espionage.
The Iranian ministry statement did not mention the case of the two Britons.
It said Araghchi criticized “the irresponsible approach of the three European countries toward the Iranian nuclear issue,” referring to Britain, France and Germany.
The three countries at the end of September initiated the
reinstatement of UN sanctions against Iran because of its nuclear program.
The Foremans, both in their early fifties, were seized in January as they passed through Kerman, in central Iran, while on a round-the-world motorbike trip.
Iran accuses the couple of entering the country pretending to be tourists so as to gather information for foreign intelligence services, an allegation the couple’s family rejects.
Before Friday’s call, the last exchange between the two ministers was in October.
