Israel’s plan to expel the UN from Gaza.
An Israeli network reported that Netanyahu’s cabinet is considering a confidential plan to expel the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) from Gaza.
The Israeli Channel 12 reported today that the Israeli Foreign Ministry intends to send a plan to the cabinet to expel the Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), which is a UN agency.
According to the report, the plan is classified as “top secret” and includes three stages: first, to uncover alleged cooperation between UNRWA and Hamas. Second, to reduce UNRWA’s activities in Gaza and replace it with one or more other organizations to provide educational and social services to the people of Gaza. And third, to transfer all of UNRWA’s duties to a body that will govern Gaza after the war.
Channel 12 reported that this plan will soon be presented to Netanyahu’s cabinet.
This plan comes after UNRWA has leveled severe and unprecedented criticism against Israel since the beginning of the war, repeatedly accusing the regime of war crimes.
In the latest incident, UNRWA announced yesterday that Israeli soldiers targeted a humanitarian aid convoy belonging to the agency in central Gaza as the soldiers returned from the northern part of Gaza.
Thomas Wajih, the head of UNRWA in Gaza, said, “Israeli soldiers fired at a humanitarian aid convoy as they returned from northern Gaza through a road designated by the Israeli army.”
He also said, “Humanitarian aid workers should never be targeted.”
Martin Griffiths, the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, also said today in response to this attack by Israel that attacking “humanitarian workers is illegal.”
Israel’s attempt to rid itself of UNRWA comes at a time when last week the UN Security Council (with the United States abstaining) approved a resolution to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza; aid that, according to Gaza sources, has not increased in any way, and Israel continues to allow only a small portion of the aid into the strip.