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26 September 2024<\/p>\n
Following are UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres\u2019 remarks at the high-level ministerial meeting in support of the Â鶹APP Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East\u00a0(UNRWA), in New York today:<\/p>\n
I thank the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Sweden for co-chairing this gathering and for their continued leadership in the support for UNRWA. \u00a0I also thank all of you here today for your solidarity with Palestine refugees.<\/p>\n
When we met one year ago, I spoke about putting ourselves in the shoes of Palestinians in Gaza. \u00a0Of imagining what life must be like.\u00a0 I ended my remarks one year ago by saying: \u00a0\u201cThis is the most dramatic humanitarian problem associated with the riskiest explosive potential.\u201d\u00a0 This was just days before the horrors of 7\u00a0October\u00a02023.<\/p>\n
Now, almost one year since that day, the situation for Palestinians in Gaza is beyond imagination.\u00a0 It has been said that \u201cthe Â鶹APP was not created to bring us to heaven, but to save us from hell\u201d.\u00a0 Unfortunately, neither the Â鶹APP nor anyone else that might have the power to do it was able to save the people of Gaza from hell.<\/p>\n
We have failed the people of Gaza.\u00a0 They are in a living hell that somehow gets even worse by the day.\u00a0Over 41,000\u00a0people have been reported killed and more than 90,000\u00a0wounded, many with life-changing and life-long injuries. \u00a0The majority are women and children.<\/p>\n
Two million Palestinians are now crammed into a space the size of the Shanghai International Airport. \u00a0Existing \u2014 not living, but existing \u2014 among lakes of sewage, piles of rubbish and mountains of rubble.\u00a0 The only certainty they have is that tomorrow will be worse.<\/p>\n
Yet, if there is any outpost of hope in this hellscape, it is UNRWA.\u00a0 Even though UNRWA \u2014 as we all know \u2014 has not been spared.\u00a0 On the human level \u2014 222\u00a0UNRWA colleagues have been killed, many together with entire families, several in the line of duty. \u00a0This is the highest death toll in UN history.<\/p>\n
I ask you \u2014 all of you \u2014 to think for a moment in the different entities that you preside [over], or to which you belong, what would be the impact if 222\u00a0members would have been killed and even after that having to go with their duties to save the people of Palestine.<\/p>\n
UNRWA personnel have been attacked repeatedly while going about their work. \u00a0Women and men are displaced, shot at, and subjected to violent protests, detained by Israeli security forces, reporting mistreatment and torture.<\/p>\n
UNRWA has not been spared on the operational level \u2014 the humanitarian response in Gaza is being strangled.\u00a0 Protection and deconfliction mechanisms for humanitarian aid deliveries have failed. \u00a0Attempts to evict UNRWA from its headquarters in East Jerusalem continue.<\/p>\n
And UNRWA has not been spared on the political level. \u00a0This includes systematic disinformation campaigns that discredit the agency\u2019s life-long work.\u00a0 Meanwhile, draft legislation in the Israeli parliament seeks to label the Agency a terrorist organization and to make any activity by UNRWA on Israeli territory illegal.<\/p>\n
In the face of the catastrophic conditions, UNRWA perseveres.\u00a0This is a tribute to the resilience of the women and men of UNRWA, and a tribute to your support.\u00a0 I have full confidence in UNRWA\u2019s continued commitment to upholding the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality, and humanity and to implement the recommendations of the Independent Review by Catherine Colonna.<\/p>\n
Member States are showing that same confidence.\u00a0 Virtually all donors have reversed their funding suspensions. \u00a0One hundred and twenty-three countries have signed up to the declaration on shared commitments to UNRWA.\u00a0 This underscores the consensus that UNRWA\u2019s role across the occupied West Bank and the region is vital.<\/p>\n
There is no alternative to UNRWA.\u00a0 Now is the time to work on all fronts to intensify support for the Agency\u2019s vital mission.\u00a0 Support with funding that is sufficient, predictable and flexible.<\/p>\n
Of course, we all know that UNRWA is not a sustainable long-term solution to the plight of Palestine refugees. \u00a0It was never meant to be.\u00a0 That is why we keep pressing for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the immediate release of all hostages and a long-term political solution ending the occupation and leading to two States living side by side in peace and security, with Jerusalem as the capital.<\/p>\n
But, until that moment, UNRWA remains indispensable.\u00a0 I urge your full support.\u00a0 Help us to save UNRWA as it works to save and serve Palestine refugees.\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n
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