As Gaza Faces Famine, Israel Cuts Ties with UNRWA and U.S. Halts Funding for Critical Aid Agency

[Uncle Joe]

Despite a U.N.-backed report sounding the alarm on imminent famine in northern Gaza, Israeli authorities announced Sunday they will no longer approve the passage of any UNRWA food convoys into northern Gaza. "Our ability to adequately continue saving lives is really being obstructed," says UNRWA spokesperson Tamara Alrifai. "What's going to happen to UNRWA if we can no longer truly operate?" The decision came as President Biden signed a $1.2 trillion appropriations bill that strips funding to UNRWA for the next year. The U.S. first suspended aid to UNRWA in late January, when the Israeli government claimed 12 of the agency's 30,000 employees were involved in Hamas's attacks on October 7. The unsubstantiated allegation prompted top donors to cut funding to UNRWA, though many of them have resumed funding as the agency welcomes new donor countries and an unprecedented number of civil society donations. Seeing the U.S., the agency's largest donor, "withhold funding … is a huge blow to us," says Alrifai. "Stripping UNRWA of funding not only shrinks its ability to respond to the looming famine in Gaza, but also puts at risk the schools, the access of kids to proper education, the vaccines, the mother and child care — everything across the region."

[RandySF]

1. The UN saw fit to fire the collaborators.

[stopdiggin]

2. it really wasn't that "unsubstantiated"

and the crossover between the organizations is more or less acknowledged on all sides. Essentially this is the 'facts on the ground'.
(now how to deal with that while still delivering aid to Gaza .... good question, and I'm sure I don't have an answer.)

[PatrickforB]

3. OK, before I started this reply to the OP, I looked at some background information.

Here's an excerpt from an AP report on March 4:

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel ramped up its criticism of the embattled U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees Monday, saying 450 of its employees were members of militant groups in the Gaza Strip, though it provided no evidence to back up its accusation.

Major international funders have withheld hundreds of millions of dollars from the agency, known as UNRWA, since Israel accused 12 of its employees of participating in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel that killed 1,200 people and left about 250 others held hostage in Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.

And one from Reuters:

March 8 (Reuters) - The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said some employees released into Gaza from Israeli detention reported having been pressured by Israeli authorities into falsely stating that the agency has Hamas links and that staff took part in the Oct. 7 attacks.

The assertions are contained in a report by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reviewed by Reuters and dated February 2024 which detailed allegations of mistreatment in Israeli detention made by unidentified Palestinians, including several working for UNRWA.

In the meantime, Al Jezeera is reporting that over 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza have died so far. Children are dying. Patients in hospitals are dying. Parents cannot feed their families, and the first thing Israel did after the October 7 attacks is cut off both electricity and water to Gaza.

The problem here is obvious. Yes, Hamas is a bunch of dirtbags, terrorists who should be imprisoned for life without parole.

BUT.............

Children are dying. Parents are dying. Patients unlucky enough to be in hospital are dying.

All while the war grinds on.

Now, don't get me wrong - Israel has every right to defend itself, but over 32,000 Palestinians have DIED since October 7 and one must ask how many of these people were Hamas and how many are civilians? And how many of those who starve to death or die of thirst between now and Easter are actual Hamas combatants?

Let's try and bring this home. What if this war was happening on US soil, and 32,000 of us had been killed? What if some external party had cut off our power and our water, and now we were starving because that external force had accused the UN without any evidence of be in cahoots with whoever among us precipitated the terrorist act that caused the dogs of war to grind in on us. What would that be like?

See, we seldom even think this way because we are so used to being a superpower. I'll tell you what, though. If Trump wins the election this November, we will quickly lose worldwide support and become a third world country. Take this a step further and think how many people around the world hate us because we have carpet bombed the, killed hundreds of thousands. Chinese, N. Koreans, Vietnamese, Iraqis, Afghans, and so on.

If the tables were turned, could we expect aggressors to grind into our country and kill hundreds of thousands of us? I think yes. Could we expect mercy? I think no.

So maybe we'd better start learning some compassion.

Children are dying. People are starving. This is a humanitarian crisis and I'm not seeing that Bibi and his Likud party even care. They just want to kill in revenge. But how many new terrorists are being minted among the starving children as this attack grinds on?