More than 15,000 civilians in gaza were sheltering in UN schools in early January because they were forced to flee their homes in the face of the Israeli air and ground offensive, or even ordered out by Israeli troops. The UN opened up 27 of its schools as shelters, most in the northern town of Jabaliya, where food, blankets and counselling are being provided.
The UN has stepped in to help because it is by far the largest humanitarian resource in Gaza, particularly the UN Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), which supports Palestinian refugees across the Arab world. More than 1 million Gazans are refugees: either they or their families were forced from their homes or fled in the 1948 war that resulted in the creation of Israel.
Presented with reports of the heavy civilian death toll after the Israeli bombing of two UN schools serving as shelters in Gaza on January 6, some Israeli officials argued that militants had used UN property to launch rockets in the past. But the UN underlined the fact that it had passed on the coordinates of the schools to the Israeli military to prevent such killings, and called for an inquiry. “These tragic incidents need to be investigated and if international humanitarian law has been contravened, those responsible must be held accountable,” says Max Gaylard, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Palestinians.
While Israel says that its war in Gaza is “unavoidable”, it also argues there is no humanitarian crisis and that it is allowing in sufficient aid. Unrwa has been critical of Israel’s blockade of Gaza in recent years, presenting evidence of a mounting humanitarian crisis, particularly in the last 11 days of conflict. John Ging, Unrwa’s director of operations in Gaza, describes Israel’s war as a “completely unjustified and unnecessary conflict”.
More often their disagreements have a strong political dimension. Last month (December), Israel refused entry to, and then deported, Richard Falk, a Jewish American academic who is the UN special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories. Israel said he was being denied entry because in 2007 he described the Israeli blockade of Gaza as a “holocaust in the making”. More broadly, Israel objects to the UN special rapporteur position because it does not document what Israel sees as the other side of the story: Palestinian abuses of Israeli human rights.
Israel also opposes the UN Human Rights Council, which it says focuses unfairly on Israel’s behaviour in the occupied Palestinian territories. So in 2007 Israel declined several times to give an entry visa to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the South African Nobel laureate, because he had been sent by the UN council to investigate the Israeli shelling of a house in Gaza in which 18 civilians, members of the same family, were killed. Israel blamed a technical error in the artillery gun.
Undeterred, Tutu made a rare crossing into Gaza from Egypt last year. He emerged from his interviews in what he described as a state of shock and called for an end to the “abominable” Israeli blockade. He later reported to the UN there was a “possibility” that the shelling was a war crime.
(Excerpted and adapted from www.irinnews.org)