The UN mission in Gaza ‘collapses’ as its chief predicts assassinations of his own staff

The United Nations Palestinian aid agency is now “on the brink of collapse” and “barely” able to help civilians, the UN chief has warned.

More than 130 UNRWA staff have already been killed in Gaza and around 7,000 people are left “without food, water and adequate shelter” after being driven from their homes by Israeli shelling, Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said on Friday.

In a desperate letter to UN leaders asking for an “immediate” ceasefire, he wrote: “We are holding on with our fingertips.

“If UNRWA collapses, humanitarian aid in Gaza will collapse too.”

UNRWA employs around 10,000 people in Gaza, most of whom are Palestinians, to run schools, health clinics and other emergency services.

Mr. Lazzarini said he expected more of his workers to die in the ongoing Israeli offensive.

He called the current situation “the darkest hour in the organization’s 75-year history” and warned that UNRWA’s ability to continue its work “is now severely limited, with immediate and grave consequences” for the lives of civilians .

“Today, as a result of the Israeli military operation, almost 1.2 million civilians have taken refuge in UNRWA buildings,” Lazzarini wrote.

“Our staff are still running health centers, managing shelters and supporting traumatized people, some of whom arrive with their dead children.

“We still distribute food even when the hallways and courtyards of our building are too crowded to walk through.”

“Our employees take their children to work so they know they are safe or they can die together.”

In addition to a “humanitarian ceasefire,” Mr. Lazzarini reiterated calls for the UN General Assembly to “uphold international law in Gaza” and “protect the prospects for a political solution.”

He also reiterated previous warnings that refugees could be forced to move “to Egypt and beyond,” which would “reduce the prospects for… [a] political solution’.

UNRWA has been criticized over allegations that staff have ties to Hamas and glorify or sympathize with violence against Israeli civilians.

Germany, UNRWA’s second-largest donor after the United States, recently froze the organization’s funding after discovering that educational materials glorifying violent jihad and anti-Semitism were being distributed in UNRWA schools.

The German Development Ministry was reportedly provided with evidence that teachers and other UNRWA staff celebrated the October 7 Hamas massacres.

The European Parliament has issued resolutions five times in the past five years “highlighting that anti-Semitic content in Palestinian school textbooks, including incitement to violence, has still not been removed” after calling for it.

UNRWA criticized the resolutions, saying there was “a strict framework for staff conduct to ensure that staff, and therefore UNRWA, do not associate with other groups.”

Almog Boker, an Israeli journalist for Channel 13, reported last week that an unnamed former hostage recently released from Gaza told him he had been held in an attic by an UNRWA teacher for almost 50 days.

UNRWA called the claims “unsubstantiated” and lacked “credible information” to substantiate them.

Böker has since stated that he cannot release further information without endangering other hostages still in Gaza.

Or you can submit your videos and photos here.

News site.

You can now also have articles from Metro.co.uk sent straight to your device. Sign up here for our daily push notifications.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.