UNRWA ‘very near to breaking point' in Gaza, Lazzarini says
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UNRWA has been affected by Israeli aggression on the Strip, with incessant targeting of most of its facilities, pushing it to a possible "breaking point".
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Commissioner-General of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, leaves after he meets with Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bouhabib, in Beirut, Lebanon, on September 17, 2024. (AP)
The head of the UN relief agency for Palestinians stated on Wednesday that its operations in the Gaza Strip are nearing a breaking point due to increasingly challenging conditions.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told journalists at a news conference in Berlin, “I will not hide the fact that we might reach a point that we won’t be able to operate anymore", adding, “We are very near to a possible breaking point. When will it be? I don’t know. But we are very near to that."
He noted that the agency is confronted with a myriad of financial and political threats that risk its survival, alongside challenges in daily operations, as the need for aid grows more urgent due to the risks of disease and famine.
Lazzarini warned that as winter approaches, a genuine risk of famine or acute malnutrition is becoming likely, particularly with the people's immune systems weakened.
Read next: 'Israel' employs a 'surrender or starve' strategy in Northern Gaza: WP
Earlier this week, "We are becoming wordless, we soon have exhausted all our vocabulary to try to describe what has become a wasteland," Lazzarini said in an interview for the BBC.
He indicated that "the war has been the war of all the superlatives, look at the number of civilians and people who have been killed, the number of humanitarian workers, UNRWA workers … [killed], the level of destruction, the number of times people have been moved around."
According to the statistics, he revealed that more than two-thirds of UNRWA buildings have been hit and deemed unusable, the vast majority while sheltering displaced people under the UN flag.
