NEW YORK, Nov 6 (KUNA) -- Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Philippe Lazzarini called on the UN member states to defend the aid agency against the recent Israeli measures.
Unless the international community steps in, the UNRWA will collapse and will be no longer able to provide essential assistance to millions of Palestinians, he warned in a briefing to the UN General Assembly on UNRWA activities on Wednesday.
Lazzarini made the comments days after the Knesset (the parliament of the Israeli occupation) passed two legislations to ban UNRWA from working in the occupied Palestinian territories and criminalize any contacts with the UN aid agency.
UNRWA is experiencing the worst moment, he said, affirming that protecting the future of Palestinian refugees and UNRWA was a collective responsibility that the international community must shoulder.
Protecting the aid agency means protecting the UN organization which represents the core of the multilateral system, he noted, affirming that the collective future of the world was in great peril.
In the centre is Philemon Yang, President of the seventy-ninth session of the United Nations General Assembly, and at right is Ruth de Miranda, Director of the General Assembly and Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Affairs Division of the Department of General Assembly and Conference Management (DGACM).
Lazzarini offered three-point proposal for the UN member states to help protect UNRWA against collapse; first to affirm that any changes to the mandate of the agency must be come through the UN General Assembly, not unilaterally by individual countries.
Second, the UN member states need to ensure that any phasing out of the UNRWA mandate must fall in the framework of a gradual political transition provided that an entitled Palestinian administration take over UNRWA activities.
Third, the UN member states must maintain funding for the UNRWA in order to help the agency continue its activities.
Meanwhile, the permanent delegate of Lebanon Hadi Hashem, speaking on behalf of the Arab group of states, condemned the recently adopted Israeli legislations as null and void.
The Israeli occupation's laws fall in the framework of a political witch-hunt against UNRWA and an attempt to undermine the Palestinian refugees' inalienable right to return to their homeland under the relevant UN resolution, he pointed out.
The Lebanese diplomat stressed that the Israeli laws constituted a serious precedence against not only the Palestinian people but the entire UN system as well.
He urged the UNGA to adopt urgent political and legal measures to repel the Israeli attacks against the UN aid agency and the Palestinian people. (end) ast.gb