Lebanon calls for support to UN agency for Palestinian refugees

By Wassim Saifuldine

BEIRUT (AA) - Lebanon called on Monday for doubling efforts to support the UN agency for Palestinian refugees amid reports of a famine in the Gaza Strip.

“There is no alternative to UNRWA, which was established after the failure of the two-state solution about 75 years ago,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It called on countries that suspended their funding to the UN relief agency to reverse their decision.

“This aid gives the Palestinian people hope for survival and restores confidence in the ability of the United Nations to rescue and protect Palestinian refugees,” it added.

Following Israeli accusations that some of the UN agency members were involved in the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, several Western countries, including the US, UK, Australia, and many EU countries, have halted payments to UNRWA, pending an investigation.

UNRWA was created by the UN General Assembly more than 70 years ago to assist Palestinians who were forcibly displaced from their land.

The agency provides crucial support to millions of Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and other areas where large numbers of registered Palestinians live.

On Sunday, UNRWA warned that Gaza’s population is on the verge of famine amid Israel’s war on the Palestinian enclave.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on Gaza since a cross-border incursion by the Palestinian group Hamas last October, which killed nearly 1,200 people.

More than 31,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed in the enclave, and nearly 73,800 others injured, besides mass destruction, displacement and shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of most food, clean water and medicine, while 60%of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara