Geneva: The State of Qatar urged the international community and donors to provide adequate financial support and ensure the creation of necessary conditions to enable the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to carry out its tasks, in light of the failure to reach a political solution to end to the ongoing war on civilians in Gaza Strip for five months.
This came in the statement of the State of Qatar made by Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the United Nations Office in Geneva H E Dr. Hind Abdulrahman Al Muftah (pictured), at the UN Office Executive Briefing with Philippe Lazzarini, the UN Under-Secretary-General and UNRWA Commissioner-General.
The Permanent Representative voiced Qatar’s deep concern about information indicating a significant deterioration in the humanitarian conditions in Gaza Strip due to the war and the collective punishment imposed by the Israeli occupation forces on the Palestinians.
Her Excellency praised the efforts made by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza Strip to help the Palestinians and alleviate the human suffering. She also offered her sincere condolences on the victims of Gaza war from the UNRWA staff while carrying out their duty. She noted that the State of Qatar condemned in the strongest terms the recent Israeli attacks on the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, and warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in the city which has become the last refuge for hundreds of thousands of displaced people in the besieged Strip.
She stressed the need to separate between the UNRWA as a UN and international institution with long-standing values and traditions, and the charges made against a number of its employees who are still under investigation; warning against punishing an entire humanitarian agency due to accusations directed at some of its employees, especially in light of the suffering already resulting from the lack of funding over the years.
She added that the UNRWA supports millions of Palestinians in Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria; warning that suspending its funding will negatively affect its work and its ability to respond to the urgent needs of Palestinians in all these areas and will have catastrophic repercussions, as more than 6 million Palestinians will be deprived of relief and humanitarian services.
Qatar’s Permanent Representative Dr. Hind Abdulrahman Al Muftah underlined that responding to the vital humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people must remain a top priority for the international community amidst the worsening suffering of this people from the scourge of occupation, siege and war, in addition to Israels obstruction of the entry of aid in a flagrant defiance of the international law and the provisional measures of the International Court of Justice in this regard.
