Quotes
There will be severe consequences if the work of UNRWA is obstructed.
Responding to an Urgent Question in Parliament yesterday, Foreign Office Minister Anneliese Dodds told MPs
Is this not verging on the definition of collective punishment?
Former Tory frontbencher Simon Hoare saidWe’ve been very clear that Israel must ensure that UNRWA can deliver aid at the speed and scale needed to address a humanitarian emergency in Gaza.
The PM’s official deputy spokesman said last nightWe expect robust processes to continue to meet the highest standards of neutrality.
Ms Dodds replied
If Israeli ministers decide to implement this, aren’t they effectively engaging in an act of warfare by starvation?
Labour MP Clive Betts saidWe are going to engage with the Government of Israel in the days ahead about how they plan to implement it. We'll watch and see if there are legal challenges to the law, and if there's any impact by those legal challenges, and then we will make our decisions after looking at all those factors.”
US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said
We are therefore requesting that The International Court of Justice (ICJ) pronounces on Israel's obligations to facilitate humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian population, delivered by international organizations, including the UN, and states,
he explained
For us, any participation in the attacks is a tremendous betrayal of the sort of work that we are supposed to be doing on behalf of the Palestinian people,
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s commissioner general, said
People from our staff were massively aggrieved and angry at the way that colleagues have been portrayed in the media as terrorists, without a shred of evidence being provided to back it up,
Rose said, explainingWe can really appreciate that there was consensus about this one thing and rejecting any attempt of labeling UNRWA as a terrorist organization,
Marta Lorenzo Rodriguez, director at the UNRWA Representative Office in Brussels, addedThey were aggrieved at the United Nations for not being able to protect them,
Rose saidIt just kind of amazes me … that there’s nothing anyone can do,
he said, in reference to the dire humanitarian situation across the enclaveEveryone’s attention is on it, but it doesn’t make a difference,
Sam Rose, senior deputy director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza, told POLITICO in an interviewMaybe it’s just too complicated, too much of a nightmare,
said Rose, who is based in Gaza, speaking to POLITICO before the ban took placeThe daily grind and the humanity in daily life doesn’t come through,
he addedUNRWA has long faced misinformation and disinformation, including about its staff and operations. This has intensified since the war in Gaza began on 7 October,
UNRWA’s website states, on a page outlining “Claims versus Facts” about the organization’s workIn the past there was this feeling that at some point this would reach a level in which the world would just say ‘this is enough,’
he saidWe’re the only organization, I think, with permanent spokespeople on the ground,
he saidI’ve got staff saying their kids try to stop them coming to work in the morning because they’re worried they’ll get blown up in another school,
he saidThe UN secretary-general has said he is going to take this issue up with the General Assembly (GA). There is some movement behind the scenes in the GA to put sanctions against Israel,
Elizondo added