JERUSALEM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0As the U.S.-created Board of Peace pushes ahead with plans to rebuild Gaza, it has said there\u2019s no place for the U.N. body that for decades has provided support to displaced Palestinians. But the agency\u2019s last chief says that behind the scenes, board members and others have been more open to working with the U.N. agency for Palestinians than it seems.<\/p>\n
Israel wants the agency known as UNRWA out of Gaza and has repeatedly accused it of being infiltrated by Hamas militants, allegations the International Court of Justice says have not been substantiated. And yet UNRWA remains the territory\u2019s largest aid provider, playing a key role in health and education.<\/p>\n
Philippe Lazzarini, who led UNRWA until earlier this year, told the Associated Press in an exclusive interview \u2014 his first since stepping down \u2014 that members of the Palestinian technocratic committee want to work with the agency. Another U.N. official shared minutes from meetings where UNRWA and the committee discussed collaborating on plans for Gaza.<\/p>\n
A Board of Peace official confirmed that board members had met multiple times with UNRWA officials. <\/p>\n
And while the agency\u2019s days are over, its programs \u201cmay persist if they are serving Gazans well,\u201d the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. <\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s Foreign Ministry did not comment.<\/p>\n
UNRWA has more workers in Gaza than anyone else<\/p>\n
There\u2019s been no reconstruction in Gaza, almost a year since the ceasefire. Israel still prevents the entry of the Palestinian committee chosen by the Board of Peace to eventually govern the strip, saying Hamas must first disarm. The committee says it needs to be inside the strip to activate Gaza plans. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s left UNRWA on the ground in Gaza, with far more workers than any other U.N. agency or nongovernmental organization. While Israel\u2019s attacks on the agency neutered its role coordinating aid entry and distribution in Gaza, UNRWA\u2019s core programs have remained.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want to get rid of the agency, but on the other hand they know that if you get completely rid of the agency today, it might have a further … devastating impact on the population,\u201d Lazzarini said.<\/p>\n
UNRWA props up about half of Gaza\u2019s public health system, said Lazzarini, whose last working day was March 31.<\/p>\n
It still has around 11,000 Palestinian employees in Gaza. They conduct about 14,000 medical appointments daily, maintain water and waste management systems for more than a million Palestinians, run digital literacy and math programs for more than 280,000 children and staff temporary learning spaces for 60,000 more, UNRWA says.<\/p>\n
UNRWA makes sure aid reaches people, Lazzarini said. \u201cIf you want the vaccine to end up in the mouths of the children, you still need the workforce, the presence of an agency like ours.\u201d<\/p>\n
UNRWA was told it\u2019s vital in planning Gaza\u2019s future<\/p>\n
Publicly, the agency has not been included in the Board of Peace\u2019s planning for Gaza. At the board\u2019s briefing to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, officials named various U.N. agencies as partners, but not UNRWA.<\/p>\n
However, behind the scenes, the Palestinian committee that will eventually govern Gaza acknowledged that UNRWA is necessary for planning, Lazzarini said.<\/p>\n
Two senior U.N. officials and the board official told the AP the board had met multiple times with UNRWA since the ceasefire was signed.<\/p>\n
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, confirmed at least three meetings between UNRWA officials and the Palestinian committee this year, most recently this month. Two took place during Lazzarini\u2019s tenure. <\/p>\n
Shortly before the end of his tenure, Lazzarini said, he spoke to Ali Shaath, who leads the Palestinian committee.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically, he said, \u2018I don\u2019t know how I can succeed without you,\u2019 \u201d Lazzarini said. Shaath and a spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
An internal U.N. description of a Jan. 26 meeting in Cairo, held without UNRWA, said Shaath praised the agency, showed a clear intention to see it back on track and said the Palestinian committee\u2019s system would largely build on its work.<\/p>\n
The Tony Blair Institute, a Board of Peace partner, also asked for UNRWA\u2019s help and spoke to UNRWA personnel, one senior U.N. official said. In response, the institute said it works with multiple U.N. agencies and NGOs in Gaza \u201cto understand the situation on the ground, the needs of the population and the practical requirements for improving conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
At a pledging conference for UNRWA on June 30, the agency\u2019s current acting chief, Christian Saunders, called it \u201cvital\u201d to efforts by the board to move forward with the ceasefire.<\/p>\n
But the Board of Peace official painted a different picture, saying the meetings focused on determining how UNRWA\u2019s operations work in order to develop programs that are \u201cfar more efficient and accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUNRWA\u2019s days are over,\u201d the official said. Still, its employees \u201dwill remain if they pass vetting and are delivering on their mandate and not advancing ideology or Hamas interests.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lazzarini said it\u2019s an \u201cabsurd contradiction\u201d \u2014 the Board of Peace says UNRWA is not wanted while U.N. member countries \u201cexpect it to deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue to emphasize that UNRWA is indispensable,\u201d Jordan\u2019s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told journalists Thursday, after more than 50 countries attended a ministerial meeting on the agency at U.N. headquarters.<\/p>\n
Lazzarini says he has faced personal attacks<\/p>\n
UNRWA was established to help Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation.<\/p>\n
In January 2024, Israel claimed, without providing evidence, that hundreds of Palestinian militants worked for the agency and more than a dozen employees took part in the Oct. 7 attack.<\/p>\n
Lazzarini said that he was never given written evidence to back up the allegations despite asking Israel and U.N. member states, but that he doesn\u2019t regret his decision to fire the employees accused of taking part in the attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did because it was in the best interest of the agency and the population we were helping,\u201d Lazzarini said, adding that he has faced \u201cextraordinary vicious, heinous attacks on social media\u201d as well as being accosted in the streets \u201cin Geneva and in New York\u201d and shouted at by \u201cpro-Israeli groups.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his two-hour interview with the AP, he shared recollections from the Gaza war. <\/p>\n
He remembered how Palestinians released from Israeli detention told his staff they\u2019d worn diapers in detention and had spent days sitting in their own excrement. He remembered how a displaced father \u2014 staying in a school courtyard with four kids \u2014 slept with shoes at his head, in case they needed to evacuate from bombardment. <\/p>\n
His book, \u201cA Witness to Gaza: What Cannot Be Erased,\u201d will be published in French in October, with an English version to follow.<\/p>\n
Frankel writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JERUSALEM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0As the U.S.-created Board of Peace pushes ahead with plans to rebuild Gaza, it has said there\u2019s no…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4530,4160,20048,56,3962,50,85,46,5160,43,283561,2200,17428,283562,36207,283563,4498],"class_list":["post-627256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-agency","tag-attack","tag-board","tag-ceasefire","tag-day","tag-gaza","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-meeting","tag-news","tag-palestinian-technocratic-committee","tag-palestinians","tag-peace","tag-peace-official","tag-philippe-lazzarini","tag-u-n-agency","tag-unrwa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627256","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=627256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}