Future looks dire for UN Palestinian refugee agency, says UNRWA chief

A Palestinian boy sits beside an aid box provided by UNRWA outside a distribution point in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, February 4, 2025. (Reuters)
A Palestinian boy sits beside an aid box provided by UNRWA outside a distribution point in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, February 4, 2025. (Reuters)
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Updated 06 February 2025
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Future looks dire for UN Palestinian refugee agency, says UNRWA chief

Palestinian boy sits beside an aid box provided by UNRWA outside a distribution point in Khan Younis. (Reuters)
  • Even in East Jerusalem, Lazzarini said, health care and other services provided by UNRWA “are continuing, though not necessarily at the same scope it used to be”

BEIRUT: The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Thursday that while an Israeli ban has not yet forced the agency to cease operations, it faces an “existential threat” in the long run.
“I have been very clear that despite all the obstacles and the pressure the agency is under, our objective is to stay and deliver until we are prevented to do so,” Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of the UN Relief and Works Agency, also known as UNRWA, said in an interview with The Associated Press during a visit to Beirut.
Israel last week formally banned UNRWA from operating on its territory. As a result, Lazzarini said, international staff have had to leave East Jerusalem because their visas expired, but in Gaza and the West Bank there has been no immediate impact on operations.
Even in East Jerusalem, he said, health care and other services provided by UNRWA “are continuing, though not necessarily at the same scope it used to be.”
UNRWA is also likely to face increased pressure from the United States under the new Trump administration.
US President Donald Trump in recent days proposed permanently resettling the approximately 2 million Palestinians in Gaza in neighboring Arab countries and suggested the United States taking long-term control of Gaza.
Lazzarini called the proposal “totally unrealistic,” adding, “We are talking about forced displacement. Forced displacement is a crime, an international crime. It’s ethnic cleansing.”
Trump announced Tuesday that Washington will not resume funding for UNRWA — which had already been halted since January 2024 when the Biden administration stopped it following accusations by Israel that UNRWA staffers in Gaza took part in the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
Israel had alleged that 19 out of UNRWA’s approximately 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in the attack. UNRWA said it fired nine staffers after an internal UN investigation found evidence that they could have been involved.
While several other donor countries also suspended funding at the time, all but the US decided to resume funding.
Lazzarini called the loss of US support “a challenge,” but said the agency is appealing to Gulf Arab countries and other donors to increase their contributions. He described his agency as the target of a “massive disinformation campaign” with a politically motivated objective of dismantling it.
UNRWA’s opponents believe the agency has prolonged the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by giving refugee status to the descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced from their homes in what is now Israel in 1948, thus maintaining for them, in theory, the right of return.
Lazzarini said those who think that UNRWA can simply be dissolved and its responsibilities handed over to other institutions are mistaken.
UNRWA provides aid and services — including health and education — to some 2.5 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza and the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as 3 million more in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. Since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023, it has been the main lifeline for a population reliant on humanitarian aid in Gaza.
Lazzarini said that while replaceable by a functioning public institution, UNRWA provides essential public services that no other UN agency offers on such a scale. It has served as a “substitute in the absence of the state for the Palestinian refugees,” he said. He argued that the only way to end the agency’s mandate is as part of a political process resulting in a Palestinian state alongside Israel, so that “at the end of this process, the agency can hand over its services to an empowered Palestinian institution.”
The alternative, he said, is to “let the agency implode and abruptly end its activities, which would mean additional suffering for one of the most destitute populations in the region.”


Israel military says intercepted missile from Yemen

Israel military says intercepted missile from Yemen
Updated 13 sec ago
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Israel military says intercepted missile from Yemen

Israel military says intercepted missile from Yemen
  • There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the launch, but it comes after Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis had threatened to escalate attacks in support of Palestinians

JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen on Thursday for the second time within a day, after air raid sirens sounded in several areas including Jerusalem.
“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in a number of areas in Israel, a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted by the IAF (air force) prior to crossing into Israeli territory,” the military said in a statement.
AFP journalists in Jerusalem had reported air raid sirens wailing in the city.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the launch, but it comes after Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis had threatened to escalate attacks in support of Palestinians following Israel’s renewed attacks on the Gaza Strip this week.
Earlier on Thursday, Israel’s military said it intercepted a projectile fired from Gaza while two others fell in an uninhabited area after sirens sounded in central Israel.
Hamas’s armed wing said it had fired rockets at Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv in response to what it called “massacres against civilians” in Gaza.
In the early hours of Thursday, the military said it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen, which the Houthis claimed was a “hypersonic ballistic missile” that had targeted Israel’s main international airport.
The Houthis in a statement also said they had again targeted an US aircraft carrier group in the Red Sea, the latest attack after a series of intense American strikes against them.
The militia had targeted ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden after the start of the Gaza war on October 7, 2023, claiming solidarity with Palestinians.
They had paused their attacks for the duration of an Israel-Hamas ceasefire that began mid-January, but resumed launching missiles and drones after the United States carried out deadly strikes on Yemen Saturday.
Israel resumed its air campaign in Gaza early Tuesday with a wave of deadly strikes, shattering a relative calm that had pervaded in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory since the ceasefire took hold.
The territory’s civil defense agency said Thursday that 504 people had been killed so far in the renewed Israeli assault, including more than 190 children.


EU leaders deplore breakdown of the ceasefire in Gaza

EU leaders deplore breakdown of the ceasefire in Gaza
Updated 20 March 2025
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EU leaders deplore breakdown of the ceasefire in Gaza

EU leaders deplore breakdown of the ceasefire in Gaza
  • The European Council deplores the breakdown of the ceasefire in Gaza

BRUSSELS: EU leaders said on Thursday that they deplore the breakdown of the ceasefire in Gaza and Hamas’ refusal to hand over remaining hostages.
“The European Council deplores the breakdown of the ceasefire in Gaza, which has caused a large number of civilian casualties in recent air strikes. It deplores the refusal of Hamas to hand over the remaining hostages,” it said in a statement.


A month-old girl is pulled from the rubble in Gaza after an airstrike killed her parents

A month-old girl is pulled from the rubble in Gaza after an airstrike killed her parents
Updated 20 March 2025
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A month-old girl is pulled from the rubble in Gaza after an airstrike killed her parents

A month-old girl is pulled from the rubble in Gaza after an airstrike killed her parents
  • A man sprinted away from the wreckage carrying a living infant swaddled in a blanket and handed her to a waiting ambulance crew
  • The baby girl stirred fitfully as paramedics checked her over

GAZA: As rescuers dug through the remains of a collapsed apartment building in Gaza’s Khan Younis on Thursday, they could hear the cries of a baby from underneath the rubble.
Suddenly, calls of “God is great” rang out. A man sprinted away from the wreckage carrying a living infant swaddled in a blanket and handed her to a waiting ambulance crew. The baby girl stirred fitfully as paramedics checked her over.
Her parents and brother were dead in the overnight Israeli airstrike.
“When we asked people, they said she is a month old and she has been under the rubble, since dawn,” said Hazen Attar, a civil defense first responder. “She had been screaming and then falling silent from time to time until we were able to get her out a short while ago, and thank God she is safe.”
The girl was identified as Ella Osama Abu Dagga. She had been born 25 days earlier, in the midst of a tenuous ceasefire that many Palestinians in Gaza had hoped would mark the end of a war that has devastated the enclave, killed tens of thousands and displaced nearly its entire population.
Only the girl’s grandparents survived the attack. Killed were her brother, mother and father, along with another family that included a father and his seven children. Rescuers digging through the rubble could be seen pulling out the small body of a child sprawled on the mattress where he had been sleeping.
The girl’s grandmother, Fatima Abu Dagga, sat with a group of other women in a relative’s house Thursday, taking turns cradling the infant. Her sons and their wives and eight grandchildren died in the bombing, and only the baby survived. She wept over the loss, and the return to the devastation of war.
“We weren’t really living in a truce,” she said. “We knew that at any moment the war might return. We never felt that there was stability, not at all.”
Israel resumed heavy strikes across Gaza on Tuesday, shattering the truce that had facilitated the release of more than two dozen hostages. Israel blamed the renewed fighting on Hamas because the militant group rejected a new proposal for the second phase of the ceasefire that departed from their signed agreement, which was mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.
Nearly 600 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including more than 400 on Tuesday alone, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Health officials said most of the victims were women and children.
The strike that destroyed the infant girl’s home hit Abasan Al-Kabira, a village just outside of Khan Younis near the border with Israel, killing at least 16 people, mostly women and children, according to the nearby European Hospital, which received the dead.
It was inside an area the Israeli military ordered evacuated earlier this week, encompassing most of eastern Gaza.
Nabil Abu Dagga, a relative of Ella’s family who lives nearby, rushed to the scene of the strike.
“People were sitting together and enjoying themselves on a Ramadan night, staying up together as a family,” he said. “... No one was expecting it and no one would imagine that a human could kill another human in this way.”
He and others started pulling out bodies. Then they heard the baby girl’s cries.
The Israel military says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it is deeply embedded in residential areas. The military did not immediately comment on the overnight strikes.
Hours later, the Israeli military restored a blockade on northern Gaza, including Gaza City, that it had maintained for most of the war, but which had been lifted under the ceasefire deal.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had returned to what remains of their homes in the north after a ceasefire took hold in January.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.
Israel’s blistering retaliatory air and ground offensive has killed nearly 49,000 Palestinians since then, more than half of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It does not say how many were militants. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.


Abu Dhabi Police warns public against fraudulent Ramadan competitions

Abu Dhabi Police warns public against fraudulent Ramadan competitions
Updated 20 March 2025
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Abu Dhabi Police warns public against fraudulent Ramadan competitions

Abu Dhabi Police warns public against fraudulent Ramadan competitions
  • Scammers trick victims into believing they have won cash prizes, ask for payments
  • Warning against fake charity links posing as legitimate organizations

LONDON: Abu Dhabi Police issued a warning on Thursday about fraudulent Ramadan competitions on social media that aim to deceive users into sharing personal and banking information.

Maj. Gen. Mohammed Suhail Al-Rashidi, the director of the Criminal Security Sector of Abu Dhabi Police, said scammers tricked victims into believing they had won cash prizes, only to ask for payments or personal information in order to claim the reward.

He urged the public to verify the authenticity of these online competitions, avoid sharing confidential information, and report any suspicious activities.

Abu Dhabi Police warned against fake charity links on social media posing as legitimate organizations during the month of Ramadan, which concludes in late March, the Emirates News Agency reported.

Al-Rashidi urges those who wish to donate to do so only through authorized organizations and legitimate channels. He also stressed the importance of remaining vigilant against online fraud, while following cybersecurity guidelines.


Battle for Khartoum wrecks key Sudan oil refinery

Battle for Khartoum wrecks key Sudan oil refinery
Updated 20 March 2025
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Battle for Khartoum wrecks key Sudan oil refinery

Battle for Khartoum wrecks key Sudan oil refinery
  • Al-Jaili refinery, some 70 kilometers north of Khartoum, was captured by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces
  • “Some units have been completely destroyed and are now out of service,” the refinery’s deputy director, Sirajuddin Muhammad, told AFP

AL-JAILI, Sudan: The once-pristine white oil tanks of Sudan’s largest refinery have been blackened by nearly two years of devastating war, leaving the country heavily dependent on fuel imports it can ill afford.
The Chinese-built Al-Jaili refinery, some 70 kilometers (45 miles) north of Khartoum, was captured by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), just days after fighting with the regular army erupted in April 2023.
For months, artillery exchanges battered the facility, forcing a complete shutdown in July 2023.
The regular army finally recaptured the refinery in January as part of a wider offensive to retake greater Khartoum but operations remain at a standstill, with vast sections of the plant lying in ruins.
Towering storage tanks, which once gleamed under the sun, are now cloaked in soot and the ground is littered with twisted pipes and pools of leaked oil.
“Some units have been completely destroyed and are now out of service,” the refinery’s deputy director, Sirajuddin Muhammad, told AFP. “Other sections need to be entirely replaced.”
Before the war, Al-Jaili processed up to 100,000 barrels per day of crude, meeting nearly half of Sudan’s fuel needs.
“The refinery was crucial for Sudan, covering 50 percent of the country’s petrol needs, 40 percent of its diesel and 50 percent of its cooking gas,” economist Khalid el-Tigani told AFP.
“With its closure, Sudan has been forced to rely on imports to fill the gap, with fuel now being brought in by the private sector using foreign currency.”
And hard currency is in desperately short supply in Sudan after the deepening conflict between Sudan’s rival generals uprooted more than 12 million people, devastating the nation’s economy.
The Sudanese pound now trades at around 2,400 to the dollar, compared to 600 before the war, leaving imported goods beyond the means of most people.
During the army’s recapture of the refinery in January, what remained of it was gutted by a massive fire.
The RSF blamed the blaze on “barrel bombs” dropped by the air force.
The regular army accused the RSF of deliberately torching it in a “desperate attempt to destroy the country’s infrastructure.”
An AFP team visited the refinery under military escort on Tuesday. Burnt out vehicles lined the roadside as the convoy passed through abandoned neighborhoods.
As the refinery grew nearer, the blackened skeletons of storage tanks loomed in the distance and the acrid smell of burnt oil grew stronger.
The control rooms, where engineers once monitored operations, had been completely gutted.
Pools of water left over from the firefighting effort in January had yet to drain away.
Built in two phases, in 2000 and 2006, the plant cost $2.7 billion to build, with China taking the lead role.
Beijing still retains a 10 percent stake, while the Sudanese state controls the remaining 90 percent.
Refinery officials estimate it will cost at least $1.3 billion to get the refinery working again.
“Some parts must be manufactured in their country of origin, which determines the timeline of repairs,” Muhammad said.
An engineer at the refinery, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said that even if Sudan secured the necessary financing, “it would still take at least three years to get this place running again.”
The discovery of large domestic oil reserves in the 1970s and 1980s transformed the Sudanese economy.
But when South Sudan seceded in 2011, the fledgling nation took with it about three-quarters of the formerly united country’s oil output.
South Sudan remains dependent on Sudanese pipelines to export its oil, paying transit fees to the rump country that are one of its few remaining sources of hard currency.
But the war has put that arrangement at risk.
In February last year, the pipeline used to export South Sudanese oil through Port Sudan on the country’s Red Sea coast was knocked out by fighting between the army and the RSF.
Exports were halted for nearly a year, resuming only in January.