Gaza Border [Israel]: Two fuel tankers entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing on Friday, following approval by Israel's war cabinet to facilitate regular deliveries to the besieged enclave, CNN reported. The tankers, carrying a total of 60,000 litres of diesel fuel, were authorised for use by international organisations, particularly the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), according to Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari.

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"This fuel entered in a limited manner for the use of international organisations, for UNRWA," Rear Adm Hagari stated, specifying that the fuel would support desalination facilities providing water to the southern strip. The oversight of this process is led by the United States and Egypt. "There are desalination facilities that shou
ld provide water to the southern strip, so the fuel is used just for these two needs. We monitor this issue to ensure it's used for these two needs only. This (process) is led by the US and Egypt," Hagari added. The decision allows two fuel tankers a day to enter Gaza, providing essential support to the water and sewage systems on the verge of collapse due to a lack of electricity. Tzachi Hanegbi, Israel's national security adviser, emphasised the critical state of these systems in a Friday briefing. Israel's war cabinet approved a measure on Friday allowing two fuel tankers a day to enter Gaza for water and sewage system support, CNN reported, citing Israel's national security adviser. Those systems are "on the verge of collapsing, considering the lack of electricity and ability to operate the sewage and water systems," the official, Tzachi Hanegbi, said in a Friday briefing. Under the approved measure, 1,40,000 litres of fuel will enter Gaza every 48 hours, with the majority allocated for water and sewage uses, a US State Department official told CNN. Additional usage includes UN relief agency trucks, waste disposal, bakeries, and hospitals in southern Gaza. A smaller portion, around 20,000 litres every 48 hours, will power Paltel generators for cell phones and internet services. The decision was made in consultation with the Israel Defence Forces and Israel's International Security Academy, ensuring it aligns with operational objectives and does not support Hamas, as clarified by Hanegbi. The rationale behind the decision was framed within the context of avoiding the spread of pandemics, acknowledging the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Hanegbi said, "We don't need pandemics that might hit civilians there, our combat troops, and if there will be pandemics, the fighting will cease. We will not be able to continue fighting under the conditions of a humanitarian crisis and a global outcry." Notably, the decision has faced criticism within the Israeli government, with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich expressing concerns and urging a reversal of the policy. Smotrich even wrote a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which he later released on X, asking for the policy to be reversed, as reported by CNN. "That decision is extremely odd. This decision is a spit in the face of IDF soldiers, bereaved families, the hostages and their families," Smotrich said, adding, "This is not how you win a war, that's not how you destroy Hamas and that's not how we'll return the hostages." Fuel shortages in Gaza have exacerbated water and sewage issues, with approximately 70 per cent of the population now relying on "salinized and contaminated" water, as reported by the UNRWA. The fuel situation has been a key focus of recent discussions, including those with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Tel Aviv earlier this month. The move to allow fuel deliveries comes after weeks of pressure from the US, CNN reported.
—ANI

Two fuel tankers entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing on Friday, following approval by Israel's war cabinet to facilitate regular deliveries

Israeli govt approves regular fuel deliveries to Gaza amid humanitarian concerns

Jerusalem: India has donated $2.5 million to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, prompting the UNRWA on Tuesday to welcome the generous contribution at a 'difficult time', particularly in Gaza.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), functional since 1950, carries out direct relief and work programmes for registered Palestine refugees. It is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions from UN Member States.  India on Monday gave UNRWA $2.5 million as part of its annual contribution of $5 million for the year 2023-24 to support the agency's core programmes and services, including education, healthcare, relief, and social services provided to Palestinian refugees, the Representative Office of India at Ramallah said.  The contribution was handed over by the Representative of India (ROI) to Palestine, Renu Yadav, to the Director of Partnerships, Department of External Relations of UNRWA, Karim Amer.  The ROI underlined India's continued support for the agency's activities in the region and the services it provides to Palestinian refugees during the handover ceremony at UNRWA's field office in Jerusalem, an official press release said.  “Confirming that UNRWA received a very generous contribution from India yesterday (Monday), which is most welcome during these difficult times and in the face of huge needs across the region, particularly in Gaza,” a spokesperson for UNRWA, Tamara Alrifai, told PTI.  The UNRWA has been struggling to provide basic services to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians since the October 7 Israel-Hamas conflict which has prompted more than two-thirds of the Gaza population – of approximately 2.3 million – to flee their homes.
Earlier on November 19, India had delivered 32 tonnes of “humanitarian assistance to the people of Palestine” via the El-Arish Airport in Egypt. Since 2018, India has given $27.5 million to UNRWA.  During an Extraordinary Virtual Ministerial Pledging Conference for UNRWA held on June 23, 2020, India announced that it would contribute $10 million to UNRWA over the next two years.  Prior to the war in Gaza, UNRWA was already facing an increased demand for services resulting from a growth in the number of registered Palestine refugees, the extent of their vulnerability, and their deepening poverty. The agency is mandated to provide assistance and protection to some 5.6 million Palestine refugees registered with it across its five fields of operation.  Its mission is to help Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip achieve their full human development potential, pending a just and lasting solution to their plight. UNRWA services encompass education, health care, relief and social services, camp infrastructure and improvement, protection, and microfinance among Palestinian refugees.  During the first-ever Indian Prime Minister’s visit to Palestine in February 2018, India increased its annual financial contribution fourfold to the UNRWA core budget, from $1.25 million to $5 million.  India has also made a strong appeal to other traditional donors of UNRWA to consider enhancing their contributions as well as to non-donor member states to consider contributing to the agency in solidarity with the Palestine refugees.
—PTI

India has donated $2.5 million to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, prompting the UNRWA on Tuesday to welcome the generous contribution

India donates $2.5 million to UN agency for Palestinian refugees

Beirut: Like many fellow residents of a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, Shady Choucair despaired when he heard last week that countries had halted their funding to the UN agency for Palestinians (UNRWA).
"It's a disaster. We were able to survive off the help we got from UNRWA," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in his small grocery store in the Mar Elias refugee camp in Beirut, where he has lived with his family for over a decade. More than a dozen donor nations including the United States, Germany and Britain have paused their funding to the aid agency following Israeli government allegations that 12 of UNRWA's 13,000 Gaza employees were involved in deadly Oct 7 attacks by Hamas gunmen in southern Israel. UN officials have said UNRWA aid is a lifeline for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as fighting rages between Israel and Hamas militants.
Also Read: <a href="https://www.thehawk.in/posts/india-sends-medical-aid-to-zambia-following-outbreak-of-cholera" target="_self">https://www.thehawk.in/posts/india-sends-medical-aid-to-zambia-following-outbreak-of-cholera</a> For the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees living in crisis-hit Lebanon and Syria, the cuts could also jeopardise the provision of basic services - from schooling to waste management. UNRWA said last week it will most likely be forced to shut down its operations in the Middle East, including in Gaza, by the end of the month if funding does not resume. Choucair, who receives UNRWA cash assistance to boost his tiny income from the grocery shop, said he feared he would be unable to pay the rent and buy his medicine for several medical conditions if the money stops. "You want to do something about it, but you can't. It's out of our hands," said Choucair, who is also worried that the free schooling his nine grandchildren receive could be stopped.
'Catastrophic consequences' UNRWA was set up to help the 700,000 refugees of the war surrounding Israel's founding in 1948 and provides essential services from education and healthcare to microloans and sanitation management to them in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. More than half a million children are enrolled in UNRWA schools and around two million people benefit from its health services, it said on its website. A lapse in funding would come at a dire moment for refugees in Lebanon and Syria, both of which remain mired in deep economic crises, said Riccardo Bocco, an expert on refugees at the Geneva Graduate Institute, a university. "Without the money from UNRWA, who in Lebanon will take care of the health of the Palestinians? Their schools? Nobody," he added. Following the allegations against UNRWA staff in Gaza, the agency opened an investigation and severed ties with members suspected of being involved in the Hamas attacks, and has urged donors to keep supporting it. Aid agencies have joined its calls, with the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) warning that defunding would have "catastrophic consequences" for the people of Gaza. The Israeli offensive launched in the wake of the Oct 7 attacks, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 253 taken hostage, has killed more than 27,000 Palestinians, displaced most of Gaza's population, left many homes and civilian infrastructure in ruins, and caused acute shortages of food, water and medicine. "It's difficult to imagine that Gazans will survive this crisis without UNRWA," Thomas White, director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza, said in a statement on Thursday.
Beyond Gaza But beyond Gaza, the financing pause threatens UNRWA's vital assistance to some six million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East, many of whom are already experiencing economic hardship, said Ayham al-Sahli, a researcher at the Beirut-based Institute for Palestine Studies. Palestinians fled to Lebanon and other Arab states in what they call the "Nakba", or catastrophe, when they were driven from their homes as Israel was created in 1948, although Israel contests the assertion that they were forced to leave. The tents that first sheltered them have given way to camps like Mar Elias, crammed with badly built concrete buildings separated by narrow alleyways. But the status of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, whether survivors from the first days or their descendants, has not changed much over the decades: they remain stateless, cannot own property and are limited in the jobs they are permitted to do. That means they have been particularly hard-hit by the country's four-year economic meltdown, with many still reliant on UNRWA aid, Sahli said. The agency is "involved in every detail of the lives of the Palestinian refugees", he added. In Syria, where civil war has devastated the country for more than a decade and where about 90% of its people live below the poverty line, UNRWA provides more than 400,000 Palestinian refugees with cash assistance and conducts development and environmental health projects in refugee camps, according to the agency's website. 'Out on the street' At a toy shop in the maze of alleys in Mar Elias, Hanadi al-Yusri - a Syrian refugee whose husband is Palestinian - said she was reeling from the news about UNRWA's funding cuts, and worried about how it would affect her two children. "The kids will be left without vaccines," she said. "We never expected this to happen, we are still in shock," said the 27-year-old, who uses cash assistance from the agency to help pay for rent and electricity in her family's one-bedroom apartment. Fearing for his safety due to Israeli fire on southern Lebanon since the Hamas conflict erupted, Hussein Ahmad, 62, left his home in the Rashidieh Palestinian refugee camp and headed to stay with relatives in Mar Elias. He said he was concerned about the potential impact of cuts to UNRWA's support to schools in the camps, where they are taught about their heritage - and the "Nakba" that led to their displacement. "Our children go to UNRWA schools and learn about Palestinian history," he said as he sheltered from the rain in a grocery store in the camp. "Where will they get that now? They will be out on the street."
—Reuters

UNRWA funding crisis endangers essential services for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza. Humanitarian aid cuts pose a threat to education, etc.

UNRWA funding cuts put Lebanon's Palestinian refugees on alert

Geneva: The head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said on Tuesday that calls to dismantle it were short-sighted and that terminating its mandate weakened the world's ability to response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
"I have talked to the member states about all these calls to have UNRWA dismantled, to be terminated. I have warned about the impact, I have said that these calls are short-sighted," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said after a meeting with member states at the United Nations in Geneva.  "The impact is not just on the short-term. It not just weakens our collective ability to respond to the humanitarian crisis..."
—Reuters

UNRWA Chief Philippe Lazzarini warns against dismantling, highlighting its impact on global response to Gaza's humanitarian crisis.

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Israeli govt approves regular fuel deliveries to Gaza amid humanitarian concerns

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Israeli govt approves regular fuel deliveries to Gaza amid humanitarian concerns

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