The Israeli attacks on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) are politically motivated said Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of UNRWA, at a press briefing in New York on Wednesday.
Lazzarini said the institute is facing the most serious crisis since its establishment in 1949, adding that Israel's cutting its relations with UNRWA and banning UNRWA from operating in the country and eastern Jerusalem are direct attacks on the institute and are completely politically motivated.
He said so far 234 staff of UNRWA have been killed in conflicts and a great number of its facilities have been destroyed. The institute is also facing a worldwide disinformation campaign aiming at undermining its legitimacy in the international community.
Lazzarini stressed that if UNRWA stops operating, the responsibility of providing education and medical services will be left to the occupying power.
"If UNRWA cannot operate, that means the UN will not be able to operate and to provide these critical services. And in that case, the only alternative and option is that the owners and the responsibility goes back to the occupying power, meaning that Israel will be responsible to provide these critical services," he said.
On Wednesday at the UN general assembly forth committee, Danny Danon, Israel's permanent representative to the UN, called for Lazzarini to resign in shame.
Lazzarini responded that Danon's remarks are not a personal attack but an attack on the function of the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, which will not come to an end even if he resigns.
"I did not have a bilateral meeting with ambassador Danon. He made a call this morning at the fourth committee asking me to resign in shame. And basically, my answer to this is that if my person would really make a difference, this is certainly something I should envisage. But I don't think it is my person which is attacked. It is my function. It is a Commissioner-General which is primarily targeted today, and it is a part of this broader campaign to delegitimize the agency and UNRWA," he said.
Lazzarini said the goal of Israel is to deprive Palestinians of their refugee status and make it impossible for them to return to the land that are now used as illegal settlements.
"The objective is to strip the Palestinian from the refugee status and also to unilaterally change the parameters for a political solution. It's a way to undermine the future aspiration of the Palestinian for self-determination. It's a way to undermine and to bury once for all the two-state solution. We have also seen that it's not just UNRWA which has been targeted. Any voices in the region supporting the Palestinian authorities supporting the pathway of a two-state solution started to be phased out," he said.
The Commissioner-General called on the member states of the UN to take emergency actions, preventing Israel from implementing relevant laws and clarifying the roles of UNRWA.
He also urged the international community not to delay or stop their donation to the institute. He warned that the attacks on UNRWA are not only weakening the function of the UN but also destabilizing the international order established since the end of the WWII.
UN commissioner-general says Israeli attacks on UNRWA politically motivated
