Attachments
Foreign Minister Abdelatty,
Deputy Secretary-General Mohammed,
Prime Minister Mustafa,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
As we gather in Cairo today, Palestinians in Gaza are trapped in a dystopian nightmare.
More than 44,000 people are reported killed – 70 percent are women and children.
Thousands more lie unaccounted for under the rubble.
Those not killed by bombardment are stalked by hunger and disease.
Amid this unrelenting misery, UNRWA remains the backbone of the humanitarian response.
We have paid a terrible price, with 249 personnel killed in 13 months.
The international humanitarian response in Gaza is today being severely tested.
The breakdown of civil order has forced us to pause aid deliveries through Kerem Abu Salem – another blow to a desperate population.
Humanitarian work can only succeed when shielded by a robust international legal and political framework.
Without this, humanitarians – however selfless and courageous – cannot stay and deliver.
It is the responsibility of Member States to ensure the necessary conditions for safe and effective humanitarian operations.
Excellencies,
I am often asked why UNRWA is irreplaceable in Gaza.
The Agency’s extensive infrastructure and thousands of personnel make it a key component of the emergency response.
But this is not the only, or even primary, reason.
For 75 years, UNRWA has provided public-like services such as education and healthcare to Palestine Refugees in the occupied Palestinian territory, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
Before the war in Gaza, our education programme provided free basic education to more than half a million girls and boys in 700 schools across the region.
The education programme in Gaza was the largest – approximately 300,000 children attended 200 UNRWA schools across the Gaza Strip.
The education we provide promotes tolerance and respect for cultural identity.
It also champions human rights and gender equality.
Palestinians value education highly – it is the only asset from which they have not, until now, been dispossessed.
UNRWA’s health programme provides comprehensive primary healthcare to millions of Palestine Refugees across the region.
We are proud to have achieved universal vaccination in Palestine Refugee communities, even exceeding vaccination rates in Europe and North America last year, before the war in Gaza.
Beyond our humanitarian and human development services, UNRWA is also the custodian of Palestinian history and identity.
Since its establishment, the Agency has maintained and updated family files of registered Palestine Refugees.
These files consist of some 30 million documents and span up to five generations.
They document everything from family composition to place of origin, to the circumstances of displacement in 1948.
We have succeeded in extracting all these files from Gaza and preserving them in a digital archive.
This is essential for protecting Palestine Refugee rights under international law.
By providing services that drive human development and protect basic rights, and by recognizing the refugee status of Palestinians, UNRWA embodies the commitment of the international community to addressing the plight of Palestine Refugees.
Dismantling the Agency without a political solution not only deprives millions of Palestine Refugees of critical services – it also eliminates a witness to the countless horrors and indignities they have endured, erasing part of their history.
Excellencies,
The implementation of the Israeli Knesset legislation to end UNRWA’s operations in the occupied Palestinian territory will have disastrous consequences.
In Gaza, dismantling UNRWA will collapse the United Nations’ humanitarian response.
Glaringly absent from discussions about Gaza without UNRWA, is education.
Only a capable public administration or state can take over the delivery of education to hundreds of thousands of traumatized children in Gaza.
If the return to learning is not prioritized, an entire generation will be denied the right to education.
Their future will be sacrificed, sowing the seeds for marginalization and extremism.
The Agency is unique among international organizations and United Nations entities in that it directly provides public-like services to an entire population.
Before the war, UNRWA addressed 70 to 80 percent of primary healthcare needs in Gaza.
We still provide 16,000 medical consultations each day, which means half a million consultations every month.
No other agency can take over these functions at the required scale.
Excellencies,
If our urgent and collective priority is to enhance the humanitarian response in Gaza and facilitate a lasting political solution, I urge you to do the following:
First, use all available legal and political tools to prevent the implementation of the Knesset legislation to end UNRWA’s operations.
Second, safeguard the Agency’s role during the inevitably long and painful transition from a ceasefire to the “day after”.
This will require strong political and financial support.
Initiatives such as the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution can help to determine a viable political path that will resolve the question of Palestine.
Until then, I urge you to defend UNRWA’s indispensable role in the lives of millions of Palestine Refugees.
Thank you.
Background Information:
UNRWA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. The United Nations General Assembly established UNRWA in 1949 with a mandate to provide humanitarian assistance and protection to registered Palestine refugees in the Agency’s area of operations pending a just and lasting solution to their plight.
UNRWA operates in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, The Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
Tens of thousands of Palestine refugees who lost their homes and livelihoods due to the 1948 conflict continue to be displaced and in need of support, nearly 75 years on.
UNRWA helps Palestine Refugees achieve their full potential in human development through quality services it provides in education, health care, relief and social services, protection, camp infrastructure and improvement, microfinance, and emergency assistance. UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions.