LONDON: British lawmakers warned Friday that an Israeli ban on the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency due to be implemented this month threatens to undermine efforts for peace in the Middle East.
A long-awaited ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas to end the 15-month war in Gaza is due to take effect this weekend.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said on Thursday that legislation barring UNRWA from operating in Israel and east Jerusalem due to be implemented by the end of January threatened the agreement.
“What we don’t want is this peace, that begins on Sunday, undermined by that legislation just a few days into its passing,” he told parliament on Thursday.
The chair of the UK parliament’s International Development Committee echoed his call on Friday.
“While news of a ceasefire is encouraging, the situation on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank remains alarming,” said Sarah Champion, from the ruling Labour party.
“Israel’s proposed ban on UNRWA would prevent aid distribution in Gaza, devastate Palestinian livelihoods and send disruptive ripples throughout the Middle East.”
Her comments came as her committee published a report urging the British government to “do all it can” to ensure UNRWA is able to continue its work.
The report concluded that if UNRWA were banned it would almost certainly lead to further conflict and displacement.
UNRWA provides aid to some six million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
But the agency has faced criticism from Israeli officials that has escalated since the start of the war in Gaza, which was unleashed after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Israel claims that a dozen UNRWA employees were involved in the assault, which resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s ensuing campaign has destroyed much of Gaza, killing 46,788 people, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
A series of probes, including one led by France’s former foreign minister Catherine Colonna, found some “neutrality related issues” at UNRWA but stressed Israel had not provided evidence for its chief allegations.
UK MPs urge Israel to reconsider UNRWA ban
https://arab.news/wprum
UK MPs urge Israel to reconsider UNRWA ban
- The chair of the UK parliament’s International Development Committee echoed his call on Friday
- “While news of a ceasefire is encouraging, the situation on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank remains alarming,” said Sarah Champion
Macron urges Netanyahu to avoid ground offensive in Lebanon
- “I called on the Israeli prime minister to preserve Lebanon’s territorial integrity and to refrain from a ground offensive,” Macron said
- Macron said he also spoke to Aoun and Salam, stressing the need for Hezbollah “to immediately cease its attacks”
PARIS: France’s President Emmanuel Macron said he urged Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to “refrain from a ground offensive” in Lebanon in their first phone call since last summer.
“I called on the Israeli prime minister to preserve Lebanon’s territorial integrity and to refrain from a ground offensive,” Macron said on X, after Israeli ground forces pushed into several border towns and villages in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon, a former French protectorate, was drawn into the Middle East war on Monday when the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the death of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes at the weekend.
The French president said he also spoke to Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, stressing the need for Hezbollah “to immediately cease its attacks against Israel and beyond.”
Relations between Macron and Netanyahu soured last summer after the French leader declared France’s intention to recognize Palestinian statehood.
France formally recognized a Palestinian state in late September, before a fragile ceasefire took hold in the Gaza Strip the following month.
In a letter sent in mid-August, Netanyahu had complained the French plan to recognize a Palestinian state was fueling antisemitism — to which Macron responded that the fight against antisemitism should “not be weaponized.”
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said in early September that his government would not agree to Macron visiting so long as Paris planned to recognize a Palestinian state.
