UNITED NATIONS: The UN on Tuesday appointed an envoy to complete a “strategic assessment” of the agency charged with aiding Palestinians, a spokesman said.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres appointed Ian Martin of the United Kingdom to review the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, to gauge the “political, financial, security” constraints the agency faces.
The organization, broadly considered to be the backbone of humanitarian aid delivery for embattled Palestinians, has withstood a barrage of criticism and accusations from Israel since Hamas’s deadly October 7, 2023 attack inside Israel and the devastating war in Gaza that followed.
Israel cut all contact with UNRWA at the end of January, and has accused 19 of its 13,000 employees in Gaza of being directly involved in the October 7 attacks.
“We’re trying to see how in this very complex environment, UNRWA can best deliver for the Palestine refugees it serves. For the communities it serves, they deserve to be assisted by an organization, by an UNRWA that can work in the best possible manner,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.
The review is being carried out as part of the UN80 initiative launched last month to address chronic financial difficulties, which are being exacerbated by US budget cuts to international aid programs.
Not all agencies will undergo a strategic assessment, but UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are unique, Dujarric said.
“We will not question UNRWA’s mandate. We will see how UNRWA can better operate and better serve the communities that rely on” it, Dujarric added.
The agency was created by a UN General Assembly resolution in 1949, in the wake of the first Israeli-Arab conflict, shortly after the creation of Israel in 1948.
Throughout decades of sporadic but ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, UNRWA has provided essential humanitarian assistance to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
Educated at Cambridge and Harvard universities, Martin has previously served the UN on missions in Somalia, Libya, Timor-Leste, Nepal, Eritrea, Rwanda and Haiti.
UN appoints envoy to assess aid for Palestinians
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UN appoints envoy to assess aid for Palestinians
- “We’re trying to see how in this very complex environment, UNRWA can best deliver for the Palestine refugees it serves,” Dujarric told reporters
- “We will see how UNRWA can better operate and better serve the communities that rely on“
Syria says detained senior Daesh jihadist in Damascus
- The arrest came less than two weeks after a December 13 attack killed two US soldiers
DAMASCUS: Syrian authorities have arrested a senior Daesh group official in the Damascus region in a joint operation with a US-led international coalition, a security official said on Wednesday.
Taha Al-Zoubi, also known as Abu Omar Tabiya, an Daesh leader in Damascus, was detained with several of his men, General Ahmad Al-Dalati was reported as saying by state news agency SANA.
The arrest came less than two weeks after a December 13 attack killed two US soldiers and a US civilian that Washington said was carried out by a lone Daesh gunman in central Syria’s Palmyra.
“Our specialized units, in cooperation with the General Intelligence Directorate and and International Coalition forces, carried out a precise security operation targeting” an Daesh hideout, Dalati said.
On December 20, a Syria monitor said that five Daesh members were killed in US strikes in retaliation for the December 13 attack.
It was the first such incident since the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December last year, and Syrian authorities said the perpetrator was a security forces member who was due to be fired for his “extremist Islamist ideas.”
