{"id":17315,"date":"2024-04-29T11:48:19","date_gmt":"2024-04-29T09:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foundationmaxvanderstoel.nl\/?p=17315"},"modified":"2024-04-29T11:48:19","modified_gmt":"2024-04-29T09:48:19","slug":"opinie-beter-laat-dan-nooit-nederland-moet-unrwa-steun-nu-echt-herstellen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foundationmaxvanderstoel.nl\/en\/opinie-beter-laat-dan-nooit-nederland-moet-unrwa-steun-nu-echt-herstellen\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Better late than never: Netherlands should really restore UNRWA support now"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo: A Palestinian woman and children check the rubble of a building hit overnight by an Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on 20 April 2024 -. Arab News<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This opinion piece originally appeared on Joop - BNNVARA<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Between October 2023 and February 2024, the war in Gaza included\u00a0more children killed<\/a>\u00a0than in conflicts around the world during the previous four years. Moreover, a UN report expects a\u00a0famine to break out<\/a>\u00a0in Gaza. The International Court of Justice has\u00a0therefore instructed Israel<\/a>\u00a0to \"take immediate and effective measures to enable the delivery of urgently needed basic supplies and humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.\" But instead of an increase, we see a shocking\u00a0decrease\u00a0<\/em>- according to the United Nations as much as 30% - of aid reaching Gaza.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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An indispensable organisation<\/strong>
\nThe United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the largest Palestinian relief agency, plays a crucial role in providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians. UNRWA was established in 1949 to help Palestinians and Jews forcibly displaced by the war and violence that followed the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. In 1952, Israel assumed responsibility for providing aid to approximately\u00a017.000<\/a>\u00a0Jews who had been forcibly displaced. Over 700,000 displaced Palestinians and their descendants remained under UNRWA's mandate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Currently, about\u00a05.9 million<\/a>\u00a0people are eligible for the services of UNRWA, which operates in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The organisation plays an important role in housing and education for Palestinian refugees and has over\u00a030,000 employees<\/a>. What was originally intended as a temporary humanitarian programme has grown into an immense service provider that would be very complex - if not impossible - both politically and logistically to replace, above all in the middle of a conflict with urgent humanitarian needs. Aid from other aid agencies also runs entirely alongside UNRWA: \"Without UNRWA, we too cannot do our work,\" Save the Children director Pim Kraan said in the\u00a0NOS News<\/a>. \"The only organisation that can deliver large-scale aid is UNRWA,\"\u00a0says<\/a>\u00a0also MP Kati Piri.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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UNRWA under fire<\/strong>
\nBut UNRWA is in dire financial straits. The decline in humanitarian aid reaching Gaza is partly due to\u00a0allegations<\/a>\u00a0against 12 UNRWA employees. Israel alleges that these staff have links to Hamas and were involved in the October 7th attacks. No substantial evidence has been provided for the allegations, as\u00a0highlighted<\/a>\u00a0by the EU humanitarian aid chief on March 14th. Indeed,\u00a0UNRWA findings<\/a>\u00a0suggest that the Israeli army forced 21 UNRWA employees to make false confessions about alleged links to Hamas. They were allegedly subjected to torture techniques including severe physical beatings, waterboarding and threats against family members. Similar torture was previously observed by\u00a0CNN<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/a>. UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma called it \"part of efforts to dismantle UNRWA.\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Despite this, 18 countries, including the Netherlands, took the reckless decision to suspend funding to UNRWA, leaving UNRWA with almost half its budget, about\u00a0$450 million<\/a>, lost. The United States, UNRWA's largest donor, even reached an agreement to ban funds to UNRWA until\u00a0March 2025<\/a>. In contrast, Spain has\u00a0given additional funds<\/a>, because ceasing financial support would \"put hundreds of thousands of lives at risk\".<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Israel's campaign against UNRWA<\/strong>
\nAttempts to dismantle UNRWA are not new. Already during a weekly meeting of his cabinet in 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u00a0claimed<\/a>\u00a0in public remarks that UNRWA perpetuates rather than solves the Palestinian refugee problem, and that it fuels anti-Israel sentiments. He was of the opinion that UNRWA should be dismantled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Israeli government has taken further steps to\u00a0obstruct<\/a>UNRWA, including blocking shipping containers at the Israeli port of Ashdod destined for UNRWA in Gaza and containing enough flour for\u00a01.1 million<\/a>\u00a0people for five months. They have also\u00a0withdrawn<\/a>tax exemptions from UNRWA, attempted to\u00a0close<\/a>UNRWA offices in occupied East Jerusalem, and have\u00a0limited<\/a>visas for international UNRWA staff. With this information in mind, the unsubstantiated allegations from Israel against UNRWA are at the very least careless and, in a worse case, willful.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Better late than never<\/strong>
\nFrom the 22 April final report of the independent investigation into allegations about UNRWA staff, led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna,\u00a0it turns out<\/a>\u00a0that Israel\u00a0still\u00a0<\/em>has not provided any evidence for its claims.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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If the Netherlands now continues to rely on false confessions of staff, obtained under torture, it violates our credibility as a champion of humanitarian principles. Last week, Minister Liesje Schreinemacher returned to her post for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation. The very first on her\u00a0to-do list\u00a0<\/em>as she resumes her ministry, must be to resume support to UNRWA and fulfil international obligations. Children in Gaza cannot wait a day - not an hour - longer.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Foto: Een Palestijnse vrouw en kinderen controleren het puin van een gebouw dat ’s nachts getroffen werd door een Isra\u00eblisch bombardement in Rafah in het zuiden van de Gazastrook op 20 april 2024 – Arab News Dit opiniestuk verscheen oorspronkelijk op Joop – BNNVARA Tussen oktober 2023 en februari 2024 zijn er bij de oorlog […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17316,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-development","location-palestina","region-midden-oosten-en-noord-afrika"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foundationmaxvanderstoel.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foundationmaxvanderstoel.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foundationmaxvanderstoel.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foundationmaxvanderstoel.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foundationmaxvanderstoel.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foundationmaxvanderstoel.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foundationmaxvanderstoel.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foundationmaxvanderstoel.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foundationmaxvanderstoel.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foundationmaxvanderstoel.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}