UN refugee agency closes headquarters in Jerusalem after attack by ‘Israeli extremists’, says UNRWA chief | World

The Agency of UN for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) announced that it will close its headquarters in Jerusalemin Israel, after an attack this Thursday (9) carried out by “Israeli extremists”, according to the head of the agency, Phillipe Lazzarini.

Lazzarini said that Israeli residents set fire to the facade of the UNRWA headquarters while UNRWA staff were inside.the second attack of this nature in less than a week.

Phillipe Lazzarini also said that “the crowd accompanied by armed men from the complex chanted ‘burn down the United Nations'”.

“For the past two months, Israeli extremists have been holding protests outside the UNRWA compound in Jerusalem, called by an elected member of the Jerusalem municipality. This week, the protest turned violent when protesters threw stones at UN staff and in the complex’s buildings,” said Lazzarini.

There were no casualties in the attack, but officials themselves had to put out the fire because fire and police teams took time to reach the scene and restore order, according to the head of UNRWA.

Lazzarini charged Israel by recalling that the country must ensure that UN staff, facilities and operations must be protected at all times, in accordance with international law.

Israeli authorities have not yet commented on the attack on UNRWA in Jerusalem this Thursday (9) until the last update of this report.

The Israeli army stated this Sunday (5) that it attacked with military fighter jets a command center for the terrorist group Hamas that operated in a UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees facility (UNRWA), in the central region of the Gaza Strip.

The war between Israel and the Hamas group began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israeli territory, killed 1,200 people and kidnapped around 250 – it is believed that today there are still around 130 Israeli hostages left in the Gaza Strip. According to Gaza health authorities, controlled by Hamas, almost 35,000 Palestinians died in the war.

This Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Hamas had positioned the command and control center inside a UNRWA facility. “to put at risk the civilians of the Gaza Strip who took refuge there”.

“The location served as an area for launching several attacks against IDF troops and as a facility for supplying weapons to Hamas terrorists,” the Israeli forces stated on the social network X (formerly Twitter).

The text also states that attacks were carried out against “humanitarian aid distribution efforts” from this location, without giving further details.

Hours before the IDF published this text on the social network X, the head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, stated that Israel bars the UN agency’s aid access to the Gaza Strip.

“Just in the last two weeks, we recorded 10 incidents involving shooting at convoys, arrests of UN officialsincluding situations in which they were intimidated, stripped naked, threatened with weapons and long delays at checkpoints, forcing convoys to travel overnight or abort“, published Lazzarini on the social network X.

The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Lazzarini’s remarks.

Lazzarini also called on “Hamas and other armed groups to stop any attacks on humanitarian crossings, prevent the diversion of aid and ensure that assistance reaches all those in need.”

Hamas militants claimed responsibility this Sunday for an attack that closed Kerem Shalom, the main humanitarian aid crossing into Gaza.

According to the Israeli military, 10 projectiles were fired from the city of Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, against the crossing region.

Hamas stated that it did in fact fire at an Israeli military base, but did not confirm that it did so from the city of Rafah.

The director of the UN food program said that a “total famine” has gripped the north of the Gaza Strip, where 2.3 million people live.

While not a formal declaration of famine, World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said — in an interview with NBC News aired Sunday — that based on the “horror” happening there: “There is famine, total famine in the north, and it is moving towards the south.”

The Israeli government did not respond to a request for comment on McCain’s remarks.

At the time, the UN immediately fired the employees and collaborators involved and opened an internal investigation to assess the neutrality of the agency, which was headed by the former French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna.

In the following weeks, seven other UNRWA employees came under investigation for alleged links to the terrorist attack against Israel.

Around 15 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Japan, suspended funding to UNRWA following the Israeli accusations. Canada and Sweden were also in this group, but later resumed sending aid to the agency.

In March, investigators published a report and said that “UNRWA has implemented a significant number of mechanisms and procedures to ensure compliance with the humanitarian principle of neutrality.”

See below a February report on images released by Israeli forces that show a Hamas tunnel that connected a school to one of the UN agency’s offices.

Israel releases images of Hamas tunnel that connects school to UN agency