Guterres will meet with UNRWA donors this Tuesday to ask for help for the organization
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, will meet this Tuesday in New York with potential donors to help cover the funds of the UN Refugee Agency for Palestine (UNRWA), after more than 15 countries announced their contributions from it Reason to suspend the possible involvement of some of its members in attacks against Israel.
Guterres spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said at a news conference that he did not know which potential donors would attend the meeting, but added that the United Nations would do everything it could to respond to the concerns of all stakeholders, such as the European Union. to react. have requested an external review by independent agents.
“We will call any member state that has the financial means to support UNRWA,” Dujarric said, without giving a specific name.
The spokesman once again called on the countries that have announced they will stop funding – including the United States, Canada, Japan and several Europeans – to “ensure the continuity” of UNRWA's work, at least in “the most humanitarian work.” “critical”.
Dujarric recalled that UNRWA has 13,000 staff in Gaza supporting more than a million Palestinians, but their work does not end there, as they have another 17,000 agents in the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria for relief tasks – health, education and even nutrition – insert. to Palestinian refugees.
But he has made it clear that UNRWA's work in Gaza is irreplaceable or unviable by any other UN agency: “No organization outside UNRWA has the infrastructure to do the work they do. It is not that another organization will come in tomorrow and do its job, that is not feasible,” he clarified. It is responding to statements from countries like Germany, which have stated that there are other ways to support the Palestinian people beyond UNRWA.
Regarding the allegations against UNRWA of collusion with terrorism, Dujarric recalled that two investigations are underway: one by UN interior departments, launched last Friday, into the alleged involvement of nine members of the agency in the attacks of October 7th against Israel, and another, a further, more global communication about the operation that had already begun earlier.
According to the spokesman, the alleged evidence incriminating the nine UNRWA agents – one of the agents named by Israel is dead and two others are missing – was presented to the agency's Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini, who made the decision to expel the agents as an administrative measure while the investigation is completed. Subsequently, Lazzarini communicated with Guterres by telephone several times over the weekend, and Guterres said he was “appalled by these allegations,” although Dujarric has made it clear that the secretary general had not seen this incriminating evidence. (Efe)