{"id":626472,"date":"2026-09-24T22:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T22:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/626472\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T22:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T22:44:08","slug":"unrwa-work-and-mandate-in-jeopardy-guterres-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/626472\/","title":{"rendered":"UNRWA work and mandate in \u2018jeopardy\u2019, Guterres warns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking at the annual ministerial meeting on the agency’s work during High-Level Week in New York, the UN chief maintained that nearly 400 members of UNRWA<\/a>\u2019s workforce in Gaza have been killed, with hundreds of premises in the Occupied Palestinian Territory made \u201cinaccessible, severely damaged, or utterly destroyed\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese actions are wholly unacceptable and inconsistent with Israel\u2019s obligations under international law, including the UN Charter<\/a>,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a highly challenging environment, he said, UNRWA provides essential public services to Palestinians, however, its work and entire mandate from the General Assembly is now in \u201cjeopardy\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nearly two years ago, the Israeli Knesset passed legislation banning the UN agency from operating on Israeli territory \u2013 which included East Jerusalem \u2013 and cut off all cooperation between Israeli officials and UNRWA.<\/p>\n

The Israeli Government seized and began demolition of UNRWA\u2019s main compound in Jerusalem last January. The UN and multiple States maintain the punitive laws passed by parliament breach Israel\u2019s obligations under the UN Charter and Security Council<\/a> resolution 2730 on protection of humanitarian personnel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Campaign against the agency<\/p>\n

According to the UN chief, the agency has been excluded from coordination meetings with Israeli authorities over humanitarian operations in Gaza and elsewhere, while staff visas are no longer being granted by Israel and personnel have been subject to intimidation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added that UNRWA continues to face a severe financial crisis, \u201cwith a cash shortfall of $100 million\u201d, putting operations at risk and threatening the welfare of millions of Palestinian refugees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr. Guterres called on Member States to take immediate action as UNRWA\u2019s capacity to act was \u201cseriously imperiled\u201d and regional stability was at \u201cstake\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a9 UNICEF
\n A wounded woman and two children sit on a mattress amid rubble inside a damaged home in Burij, in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n

\u2018Conditions remain intolerable\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

He highlighted that continued Israeli attacks continue to kill an average of four people per day, \u201ca quarter of them children\u201d, while international law is being \u201cbrazenly violated\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe resumption of assistance since the ceasefire was announced last October has brought some relief \u2013 but conditions remain intolerable,\u201d Mr. Guterres said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said settler attacks and efforts to expand settlements in the West Bank have pushed Palestinians to \u201cbreaking point\u201d and posed a threat to the two-State solution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amidst the volatility, he said, UNRWA remained a \u201ccritical stabilizing presence\u201d and a lifeline for many Palestinian refugees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Levels unseen\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

UNRWA\u2019s Commissioner-General ad interim, Christian Saunders, said the agency\u2019s more than 10,000 personnel in Gaza are still assisting 1.7 million people, including some 70,000 medical consultations a week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said displacement in the West Bank was \u201cat levels unseen since 1967\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Forty-one of the 50 recommendations of the independent neutrality review into UNRWA operations were fully implemented, the Commissioner-General said, and a \u201cslimmer UNRWA\u201d did not mean a change to its mandate.<\/p>\n

The Commissioner-General said 94 per cent of people in Gaza lacked proper shelter and 98 per cent of households lived near environmental hazards such as raw sewage and rubble, with humanitarian partners warning of major gaps as winter approaches.<\/p>\n

In occupied East Jerusalem, measures against UNRWA had culminated in the seizure of it headquarters, vocational training centre, schools and health facilities, he said, calling on Member States to advocate for the agency to be given \u201cthe space to operate\u201d in the Occupied Palestinian Territory in line with its mandate.<\/p>\n

Watch Mr. Saunders’ press conference at UN Headquarters below:<\/p>\n

General Assembly President<\/a> Khalilur Rahman said humanitarian access was \u201cnon-negotiable\u201d and called on Member States to build on the\u00a0New York Declaration<\/a> to implement the two-State solution, through implementation of Security Council Resolution 2803.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Victim of \u2018political assassination\u2019<\/p>\n

Jordan\u2019s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman Safadi, whose country co-hosted the meeting with Spain and Brazil, said UNRWA was \u201cstill the target of political assassination\u201d despite the reforms it has carried out, and warned against any change to its mandate or transfer of its responsibilities to host countries.<\/p>\n

Mr. Safadi said host countries \u201care already doing enough\u201d and that UNRWA would only cease to be needed once a sovereign Palestinian State emerged.<\/p>\n

Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs Jos\u00e9 Manuel Albares Bueno said Spain had committed more than \u20ac85 million to UNRWA over the past three years and urged other donors to follow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mauro Vieira condemned the closure and destruction of UNRWA premises in East Jerusalem and said the source of the agency\u2019s crisis \u201cis political\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr. Vieira said Brazil had proposed a working group on disinformation during its presidency of UNRWA\u2019s Advisory Committee, and condemned plans to build military structures on the site of the agency\u2019s compound in Sheikh Jarrah.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking at the annual ministerial meeting on the agency’s work during High-Level Week in New York, the UN…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-626472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}