▲ Doctors evacuate wounded and cancer patients from Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, to Al-Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City, yesterday.Photo Afp
Ap, Reuters and Afp
La Jornada Newspaper
Tuesday, October 29, 2024, p. 22
Jerusalem. The Knesset (Parliament) yesterday banned the activities of the United Nations Refugee Agency in the Near East (UNRWA) in Israel and East Jerusalem, which puts assistance for the punished population of the Gaza Strip at risk, when there are more 100 thousand people besieged in Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoon, in the north of the coastal enclave, without medical or food supplies.
Intensifying his attack against the United Nations, the Knesset approved it with 92 votes in favor and 10 against, after an intense debate between his supporters and detractors, mostly members of Arab parliamentary parties. Later, the Legislature also approved a second law that ends diplomatic relations with UNRWA and grants it the designation of terrorist organization.
This legislation also prohibits ties between Israeli officials and the agency, and strips its staff of legal immunity.
The legislators alleged the involvement of some UNRWA personnel in the Hamas attack against southern Israel.
If the United Nations is not willing to cleanse this organization of terrorism, of Hamas activists, then we must take steps to ensure that they cannot harm our people ever again.said legislator Sharren Haskel.
Dangerous precedent
The director of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, condemned on social networks the measure that creates a dangerous precedent and denounced the last episode of an ongoing campaign to discredit to the UN agency. He added that the ban will aggravate the suffering of the Palestinians.
Hamas denounced that the legislation It is part of the Zionist aggression and war against the Palestinian people, which aims to eliminate our national causewhile Islamic Jihad warned of an escalation in genocide against the Palestinians.
Israel maintained its offensive against the Palestinian enclave and Lebanon with a death toll of 70 and more than 120 wounded.
Previously, the State Department spoke out against approving the initiative that bans UNRWA, and President Joe Biden said that Israel’s war in Gaza needs a ceasefire. We must end this war. It must end, it must end, it must endAl Jazeera reported.
Ireland, Spain, Norway and Slovenia condemned in a joint statement Israel’s ban on the activities of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. Belgium joined the repudiation.
Meanwhile, Israeli tanks entered Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoon, two cities in northern Gaza, and Jabaliyah, a historic refugee camp, leaving some 100,000 civilians trapped, the Palestinian emergency service reported. which, according to the army, were operations to put an end to the regrouping of Hamas militiamen.
The Israeli army reported that soldiers captured about 100 suspected Hamas militants in a raid on the Kamal Adwan hospital in Jabaliyah camp. Hamas and medical staff have denied the presence of militants in the hospital.
In Gaza, 43,020 people have been killed and 101,110 injured since Israel began its war against Hamas in October 2023.
In Lebanon, there are 2,710 dead and 12,592 civilians injured since the Israeli aggression began.
On the other hand, the Israeli Ministry of Defense announced yesterday that it will allocate $530 million to promote the development of a laser air defense system known as Iron Beam.
