Gaza, Jerusalem (Union)
Yesterday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) called for investigations into all Israeli violations against it, including attacks on its buildings and centers that shelter displaced civilians.
This was stated by Juliette Touma, Director of Media and Communications at UNRWA.
Touma added: “United Nations facilities are protected under international humanitarian law and must be safe shelters for civilians.”
The UN official also called for “investigations into all violations against the United Nations, including attacks on its buildings.”
Earlier yesterday, 3 Palestinians were killed and 15 others were injured in an Israeli bombing that targeted the “Asmaa School” affiliated with UNRWA, which houses displaced persons in the Beach Camp, west of Gaza City.
This is the second school targeted by the Israeli army within two days, the day after it targeted it the day before yesterday, a school housing 6,000 displaced people in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.
The war on Gaza, which entered its ninth month, left about 120,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and nearly 10,000 missing amid massive destruction and famine that claimed the lives of dozens of people.
In a related context, UNRWA spokesman Jonathan Fowler said that the agency will continue to perform its work at its headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem, despite the attacks it is exposed to from Israeli officials and activists, including attacks, procedures and legislation.
The latest of these targeting was the Israeli authorities’ decision last May 30 to evacuate UNRWA’s main headquarters in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem within 30 days, claiming that they had not obtained approval from the Israel Lands Authority to build the headquarters on that land.
Official comment
In the first official comment from UNRWA, Fowler said: “First, I would like to emphasize that we learned about the decision through the media, and we did not receive any information about it from the Israeli authorities.”
Fowler denounced the way the authorities deal with UNRWA, considering that “this is not the way things are supposed to be done with regard to international diplomacy and respect for United Nations entities, because our headquarters is like a diplomatic compound.”
He added, explaining: “We are aware of the 30-day deadline, but we have not been officially informed of it.”
Fowler said: “We are completely clear about our position. UNRWA has been present in this headquarters and another in East Jerusalem since the beginning of the 1950s.”
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