GL HERO SHIMA Posted March 27, 2024 Posted March 27, 2024 Dozens of Israeli settlers and rightwing activists have protested by again blocking the entrances of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) office in Jerusalem and calling for the body’s closure. Last week, Israel announced it would no longer approve Unrwa food convoys to the north of Gaza, where the threat of famine is highest. The decision came after the agency was accused by the government of collaborating with Hamas in Gaza, with its staff facing a systematic campaign of obstruction and harassment by the Israeli military and authorities, as revealed in internal UN documents seen by the Guardian. Unrwa was founded in 1949 to provide healthcare, food, and education to Palestinian refugees, with 5.9 million of them relying on its services. It employs about 30,000 Palestinians, 13,000 of them – mostly teachers – in Gaza. On Wednesday, a group of settlers, activists, and members of the rightwing extra-parliamentary political group Im Tirtzu staged a protest for the third week in a row, fixing posters to the building and demanding that the agency be abolished. Unrwa needs to be disbanded,” said Aynat Libman, a 52-year-old Israeli settler from Efrat. “Israel doesn’t need to provide space to Unrwa in our capital. They support terror, teach children from a very young age to be terrorists, provide support to Hamas, and supply Hamas. They are terrorists.” Israel has accused Unrwa staff members of participating in the 7 October attack and called the agency “a front for Hamas”. The UN has launched an internal and an independent investigation but has said Israel has not provided it with any evidence to support the claims against its staff. A US intelligence assessment of Israel’s claims that UN aid agency staff members participated in the 7 October attack reportedly assessed with “low confidence” that a handful of staff had taken part, indicating that it considered the accusations to be credible but that it could not independently confirm their veracity. It cast doubt, however, on accusations that the UN agency was collaborating with Hamas in a wider way. The protesters expressed their anger over the UN resolution on the ceasefire in Gaza, describing it as an attack against Israel. “The UN and [António] Guterres should be ashamed of themselves,” added Libman. “They are antisemitic, and there is no other way to say it.” Rightwing supporters and settlers have previously attempted to block aid trucks from entering Gaza at the Nitzana border crossing, and this is not the first time settlers and rightwing activists have targeted the UN agency by placing threatening posters on the main entrance and calling for it to be shut down. We want the Israeli government to expel Unrwa from Israel,” said Roei Ben Dor, 21, from Gedera. “Unrwa is Hamas; their workers are affiliated with Hamas. We should be in Gaza, not just because of Hamas but because Gaza is ours. We have every right to take Gaza, to take Rafah. This is our land.” Among the protesters was Aryeh King, a deputy mayor of Jerusalem and a prominent advocate for settlements. “We need to transfer all of them [all Palestinian residents] out of Gaza,” King said. “Because Hamas is the people of Gaza.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/27/israeli-settlers-protest-un-agency-refugees-unrwa-jerusalem
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