'Israel' cuts all ties with OHCHR, not issuing visas for employees
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The deputy to the OHCHR tells Sputnik that visa requests submitted by the human rights organization are no longer being answered.
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Forcibly displaced Palestinians receive food aid at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa) centre in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on 28 January 2024 (AFP)
"Israel" has severed all ties with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and is not issuing visas to its representatives, Sputnik reported on Monday quoting a top official in the organization.
"Israel has still not allowed the OHCHR to reopen its office in the West Bank and gain access to Gaza. Our visa requests are no longer being answered," Deputy UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada Al-Nashif said.
"We continue to ask for access, the only people from our organization who manage to enter Gaza do so on an individual basis as humanitarian workers. We no longer have political relations with Israel, they have totally cut off relations," she added.
As its genocide in Gaza continues, this comes as the latest Israeli hostile measure against a human rights organization.
UNRWA, which coordinates nearly all aid to besieged Gaza, has been in crisis since January, when "Israel" accused about a dozen of its 13,000 Gaza employees of being involved in the October 7 events. This led to the organization's top donors to suspend funding.
Read more: 'Israel' commits a massacre bombing a refugee-filled UNRWA school
However, a report commissioned by the United Nations later said that Tel Aviv provided no proof for its claims, leading to most of the key state backers to reinstate their funding.
In May, "Israel Land Authority" notified UNRWA that it must leave its al-Quds location in the Ma’alot Dafna neighborhood after Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf approved a directive to expel the UN agency for allegedly using "state land" without authorization.
Shortly after, the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees reported that it was temporarily shutting down its headquarters in the eastern part of occupied al-Quds after Israeli extremists set fire to the perimeter following weeks of repeated attacks.
