Secretary-General António Guterres today (8 Oct) told journalists the United Nations Palestine refugee agency (UNRWA) “more than ever is indispensable” and “irreplaceable” and said he had “written directly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to express profound concern about draft legislation that could prevent UNRWA from continuing its essential work in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

Such a measure, the Secretary-General said, “would suffocate efforts to ease human suffering and tensions in Gaza, and indeed, the entire Occupied Palestinian Territory,” and would be a “catastrophe in what is already an unmitigated disaster.”
Guterres said the legislation “would likely deal a terrible blow to the international humanitarian response in Gaza,” and “would effectively end coordination to protect UN convoys, offices and shelters serving hundreds of thousands of people.” Gaza’s 660,000 children, he said, “would lose the only entity that is able to re-start education, risking the fate of an entire generation.”

If approved, Guterres stressed, “such legislation would be diametrically opposed to the UN Charter and in violation of Israel’s obligations under international law.”

The Secretary-General said in Gaza’s north, “we are witnessing a clear intensification of military operations by Israel. Residential areas have been attacked. Hospitals ordered to evacuate. And electricity cut off – with no fuel or commercial goods allowed in.”

Around 400,000 people, he added, “are being pressed yet again to move south to an area that is overcrowded, polluted and lacking the basics for survival.”

Guterres said, “there is something fundamentally wrong in the way this war is being conducted. Ordering civilians to evacuate does not keep them safe if they have no safe place to go and no shelter, food, medicine or water. No place is safe in Gaza, and no one is safe. International law is unambiguous: civilians everywhere must be respected and protected – and their essential needs must be met, including through humanitarian assistance.”

He said, “the conflict in the Middle East is getting worse by the hour -- and our warnings about the horrific impacts of escalation keep coming to pass. Every air strike, every missile launch, every rocket fired, pushes peace further out of reach and makes the suffering even worse for the millions of civilians caught in the middle. That is why we cannot and will not give up on our calls for an immediate ceasefire both in Gaza and Lebanon, the immediate and unconditional release of hostages, and immediate lifesaving aid to all those who desperately need it.”