From the Liveblog of
Thursday, October 10, 2024
US envoy slams Israel over Gaza humanitarian situation, effort to ban UNRWA operations
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield slams Israel’s handling of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip along with its effort to ban UNRWA from operating in the Jewish state.
On Sunday, the IDF said that its troops had encircled the Gaza city of Jabaliya in a new ground operation targeting efforts by Hamas to reestablish itself in the northern Strip. Ahead of the operation, the IDF issued a fresh batch of evacuation orders for towns in the area and said it was readying to order the evacuation of all northern Gaza where tens of thousands of Palestinians still reside.
“The United States is concerned by the situation in northern Gaza, including the announcement by Israel of a new evacuation order for several communities. We are particularly concerned that Palestinian civilians have nowhere safe to go,” Thomas-Greenfield says during a Security Council session on the Middle East.
“Already, there are devastating reports of the squalid conditions in the humanitarian zone in southern and central Gaza, where more than 1.5 million displaced civilians have fled. These catastrophic conditions were predicted months ago, and yet, have still not been addressed. That must change, and now. We call on Israel to take urgent steps to do so, and I reiterate the United States’ expectation that Palestinian civilians, including those evacuated from the north be permitted to return to their communities and rebuild,” the US envoy adds.
“We are also concerned by recent actions by the Israeli government to limit the delivery of goods into Gaza. When combined with new bureaucratic limits placed on humanitarian goods arriving from Jordan, and the closure of most border crossings in recent weeks, these restrictions would only have the effect of intensifying suffering in Gaza,” says Thomas-Greenfield.
Turning to the Knesset’s recent advancement of legislation aiming to outlaw UNRWA’s operations in Israel and bar Israeli authorities from contacting officials from the UN relief agency for Palestinians, Thomas-Greenfield says the US is “deeply concerned” by the proposals.
Noting the allegations facing UNRWA, she says only “a small percentage” of its staffers have ties to terror groups and participated in the October 7 onslaught.
“At the same time, we know that UN personnel, including from UNRWA, are vital to the humanitarian response in Gaza and face tremendous danger while performing their work,” the US envoy says, calling on Israel to provide more information regarding allegations against UNRWA and for the agency to do a better job addressing those concerns.
