Despite Attacks From Its Facilities, U.N. Agency Requests More Funds
UNITED NATIONS — As a 58-year-old agency charged with the welfare of Palestinian Arabs is pleading this week for a renewal of its U.N. mandate and asking additional funds for its activities, Israelis are highlighting the use of the agency's Gaza facilities as launching pads for armed attacks against towns across the Israeli border.
The commissioner of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, Karen Koning Abuzayd, yesterday pleaded to cover a $90 million deficit in the organization's approved budget, which amounted to $470.9 million last year, telling reporters Unrwa needs "significantly more resources" from the countries that fund the organization. She also expressed her hope that the agency's mandate, which is due to expire in June, would be renewed this week for three more years.
But as she stressed the decrease in goods coming into Gaza because of Israeli closures of the strip's entry points, and the inevitable worsening humanitarian conditions there, Ms. Abuzayd also acknowledged that the Palestinian Arabs' plea for aid would be heard better "if there were no rockets going out of Gaza," giving the Israelis a reason "to open up a bit more."
Jerusalem officials specifically highlighted an incident last week that was dramatically captured in a camera mounted on an Israel Defense Force drone, where a Palestinian Arab in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun launched three mortar rounds into an Israeli town. As can be seen in the footage, (available at http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ClipMediaID=1401718&ak=null), the shooters are located at an Unrwa-owned schoolyard.
"If we shot at an Unrwa school, or shot back in this case, the entire U.N. system would have immediately issued multiple condemnations," an Israeli official — who said he was not authorized to speak on the record — told The New York Sun yesterday. In this case, he said, "we are still waiting for the U.N. secretariat to say anything."
On Friday, an Unrwa spokesman, Christopher Gunness, reacted to an Israeli television broadcast of the event, saying, "Unrwa condemns armed interference in its facilities by militants or during military incursions. Such interference endangers the lives of Unrwa teachers and the children in Unrwa schools and heavily disrupts our education program. Sound education is a basic building block of Palestinian society and is a necessity for the success of the two-state solution."
But Israeli officials said the statement failed to mention potential victims on the other side of the border or to make a direct reference the November 2 incident. "Regrettably, the abuse of human shields by Palestinian terrorists and the violation of a U.N. installation for terrorist purposes have not yet been clearly condemned by the U.N.," an Israeli envoy to the U.N. General Assembly committee overseeing Unrwa, Gershon Keidar, said.
Ms. Abuzayd told the Sun yesterday that the incident occurred after an exchange of fire between Israeli troops and Arab militants had forced the agency to evacuate the school. The militants then took the facility over. "We can just complain," she said, adding she believed that after she had complained to them "the powers" in the Hamas-controlled Gaza are "willing to protect the Unrwa installations. They know they need our presence in Gaza." She also said that by cutting the flow of goods into Gaza, Israel only strengthens "those who are on the extreme." On the other hand, she praised the increase of contributions to Unrwa from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, which included funds of $20 million to Gaza and $27 million to Jenin dedicated to the rebuilding of terrorists' houses that had been demolished by the IDF.
