Israel rejects UN aid agency chief’s claim he was blocked from entering Gaza
UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini says his entry to Palestinian enclave was declined; IDF: He did not coordinate trip using proper process and channels
CAIRO — The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Monday that Israel had blocked him from entering the war-torn and besieged Gaza Strip where the United Nations has warned of impending famine.
Israel responded that UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini had not followed proper procedures for coordinating his visit.
Lazzarini, who last month said Israel “aimed at destroying UNRWA,” said he had “intended to go into Rafah today, but was informed my entry had been declined.” He spoke in a Cairo joint press conference with Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.
The United States, along with more than a dozen countries, suspended its funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East in January after Israel accused 12 of the agency’s 13,000 employees in Gaza of participating in the deadly October 7 Hamas attack, in which terrorists murdered some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 253. It alleges many other staffers are members of terror groups in Gaza.
The UN has launched an investigation into the allegations, and UNRWA fired some staff after Israel provided the agency with information on the allegations, which were later expanded to include 14 staffers.
Lazzarini wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that he had been denied entry by “Israeli authorities.”
COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body governing civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, said on X that Lazzarini had not followed “the necessary coordination processes and channels” when requesting entry into Gaza.
“This is another attempt by UNRWA to blame Israel for their own mistakes,” it said of the UN agency at the center of efforts to provide humanitarian relief in Gaza.
Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said “all UN officials, including Mr Lazzarini and his colleagues in UNRWA, should have access to do the vital humanitarian work they do.”
Guterres “certainly wants Mr. Lazzarini to have access throughout the areas in which UNRWA operates,” Haq told reporters.
Israeli government spokesman Avi Hyman earlier Monday reiterated what he called Israel’s position, that “UNRWA is a front for Hamas.”
Lazzarini has said that Israel provided no evidence against his former employees accused over the October 7 attack.
Shoukry expressed Cairo’s “complete support” for the agency and criticized “unilateral actions to restrict UNRWA funding due to baseless accusations.”
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 31,000 people in the Strip have been killed in the fighting so far, a figure that cannot be independently verified, and includes those killed by the terror groups’ failed rocket launches and some 13,000 Hamas terrorists Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 gunmen inside Israel on October 7.
‘Man-made starvation’
Among the dead are 168 UNRWA employees, according to the agency’s latest figures.
Lazzarini on Monday said the UN has paid a “massive price in Gaza.”
“More than 150 of our facilities have been completely destroyed in the Gaza Strip,” he said.
“And a number of our staff were arrested and endured ill-treatment and humiliation during investigation [by Israel].”
In more than five months of war and siege, the humanitarian situation in Gaza has deteriorated to what the UN has repeatedly warned is an imminent famine.
“This is man-made starvation,” Lazzarini said.
Hamas’s health ministry in Gaza has in recent weeks recorded at least 27 deaths from malnutrition and dehydration, most of them children. The reports could not be verified.
The UN said Monday that half of the territory’s 2.4 million people are experiencing “catastrophic hunger and starvation.”
Humanitarian aid operations have intensified in recent weeks, including airdrops and efforts for a maritime humanitarian corridor from Cyprus, but UN and other aid agencies warn that these are insufficient to meet the desperate needs in Gaza.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, writing on X Monday, accused UNRWA of “collaboration” with Hamas and said “Israel allows extensive humanitarian aid into Gaza by land, air, and sea for anyone willing to help.”
Israel, which checks all trucks entering Gaza, has been under increasing pressure to allow more aid into the territory, but has blamed the United Nations for not delivering the aid fast enough after it is cleared, and for leading to a general fall-off in deliveries. It also accuses Hamas of stealing aid deliveries for itself, depriving civilians of resources.
