ANKARA: The UN’s beleaguered agency for Palestinian refugees is to open an office in Ankara within weeks, its chief Philippe Lazzarini said on a visit to the Turkish capital on Thursday.
“We have signed the final agreement with the government of Turkiye and this time it has been also endorsed by the parliament,” he told reporters, adding that it was “a question of weeks” until it opened.
The move came a day after the United Nations Relief and Works Agency said it was going through a “dire” financial crisis that had forced it to fire 571 of its Gazan staff who had continued working for it after being evacuated from the war-ravaged territory.
UNRWA said the “extremely difficult” decision was down to funding issues sparked by a fall in the voluntary contributions it relies on following a campaign of increasingly harsh criticism and attacks by Israel.
For more than seven decades, the agency has provided aid and assistance to Palestinian refugees across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, and was still operating “despite many, many constraints,” Lazzarini said.
Last year, Israel banned UNRWA from operating inside the country and Lazzarini said it was also seeking to halt its operations in the Palestinian territories.
“There is a desire by the government of Israel to dismantle UNRWA, to make sure that the agency has no future role in Gaza and possibly in the occupied Palestinian territories,” he said.
“If the agency cannot, or has to stop operating in Gaza or the West Bank, this will create a huge vacuum. Basically, there is absolutely no partner or capacity to take over public services at such a scale and scope, and with the community trust that the agency has enjoyed until now,” he said.
Israel has been ratcheting up pressure on UNRWA over the past two years.
It has accused the agency of providing cover for Hamas militants, claiming that some UNRWA employees took part in the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza.
A series of investigations found some “neutrality-related issues” at UNRWA but said Israel had not provided conclusive evidence for its headline allegation.
UN agency for Palestinian refugees says to open Ankara office ‘within weeks’
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UN agency for Palestinian refugees says to open Ankara office ‘within weeks’
- The move came a day after the United Nations Relief and Works Agency said it was going through a “dire” financial crisis
- UNRWA said the “extremely difficult” decision was down to funding issues sparked by a fall in the voluntary contributions it relies on
Israel agrees to ‘limited reopening’ of Rafah crossing: PM’s office
- The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza
JERUSALEM: Israel said Monday it would allow a “limited reopening” of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt once it had recovered the remains of the last hostage in the Palestinian territory.
The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza.
Reopening Rafah forms part of a Gaza truce framework announced by US President Donald Trump in October, but the crossing has remained closed after Israeli forces took control of it during the war.
The Israeli military also said it was searching a cemetery in the Gaza Strip on Sunday for the remains of the last hostage, Ran Gvili, a non-commissioned officer in the police’s elite Yassam unit.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the reopening would depend on “the return of all living hostages and a 100 percent effort by Hamas to locate and return all deceased hostages,” Netanyahu’s office said on X.
It said Israel’s military was “currently conducting a focused operation to exhaust all of the intelligence that has been gathered in the effort to locate and return” Gvili’s body.
“Upon completion of this operation, and in accordance with what has been agreed upon with the US, Israel will open the Rafah Crossing,” it said.
