#they cut 31 million from UNRWA aid to Gaza

[vydumaj]

I need to become a terrorist I cannot stand Sweden anymore

[reasonsforhope]

Can confirm that the above link leads to the official US website for UNRWA!

And here's a reason for hope: the fundraiser is blasting away. They just made $50,000 in the past 3 days - let's keep it going!

"Wait, hold on, I don't know what's going on here"

What's the UNRWA?

"The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, employs thousands of staffers and provides vital aid and services to millions of people across the Middle East. In Gaza, it has been the main supplier of food, water and shelter to civilians during the Israel-Hamas war."

-via PBS, January 29, 2024

If their funding is from the UN and various countries, what's up with this fundraiser?

A massive amount of UNRWA's budget was just cut in the middle of a humanitarian crisis, as the US and a number of other countries cut off aid to UNRWA completely.

They cut off aid due to Israel's allegations that 12 members of UNRWA - out of thousands of employees - were linked to the October 7th attack.

UNRWA has lost so much funding that it's going to massively deepen the humanitarian crisis there - and that funding was cut off despite the fact that, as US Secretary of State Blinken admitted yesterday (January 31, 2024) that Israel's accusations have not "born out" yet, and that the US has not even investigated the allegations themselves.

This is especially glaring and unconscionable because Israel has a documented history of lying about the events of the Israel-Gaza war and their treatment of Palestinians. x, x, x

melissa barrera (the actress who got fired from the scream franchise for being pro palestine) has started a fundraiser with unrwa!

[islamicvoice-blog]

Turkey Affirms Support to Palestinians

New post https://is.gd/WSkzux

Palestine and Jerusalem are Turkey’s “red line”, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday.

“Turkey always stands with its Palestinian brothers. Palestine and Jerusalem are our red line,” Cavusoglu said at a news conference in Ankara alongside his Palestinian counterpart Riyad al-Maliki.

Cavusoglu stressed that two emergency summits were held by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) this year as a result of US President Donald Trump’s decision to transfer his country’s embassy to Jerusalem, and the escalation of Israeli aggression in the Gaza Strip.

“Our people are determined to end the occupation and determine their own destinies,” the Palestinian FM stated. He went on to thank Turkey for its ongoing political, humanitarian and financial support for Palestine.

According to Maliki, the Palestinian leadership is working closely with Turkey with a view to filling the vacuum caused by a recent US decision to cut funding for the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA).

Diplomats told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that the discussions between the Turkish and Palestinian ministers focused on a possible financial contribution by Ankara to confront the consequences of the US aid cut.

Washington decided early 2018 to cut down the annual aid to UNRWA from USD365 million to USD125 million but it only granted USD60 million. Then on August 31, it totally halted the aid.

Turkey’s Parliament Speaker Binali Yildirim said this “weapon” would not help the US erase the presence of Palestine, as he attended a consultation meeting of the Parliamentary Union of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

– Al-Aswat

[israel-jewish-news]

EU Urges U.S. Not to Go It Alone in Mideast Peacemaking

New Post has been published on http://hamodia.com/2018/01/31/eu-urges-u-s-not-go-alone-mideast-peacemaking/

EU Urges U.S. Not to Go It Alone in Mideast Peacemaking

A protester holds a banner with a defaced picture of Scott Anderson, director of operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, in the West Bank, during a joint protest for UNRWA employees and Palestinian refugees against U.S. funding cuts, in front of the Pa alestinian prime minister’s office, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Earlier this month, the Trump administration slashed $60 million of a planned $125 million funding installment for 2018. Arabic reads, “Scott Anderson, leave.” (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

The European Union on Wednesday urged the U.S. to not go it alone in any effort to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians, warning that doing so would end in failure.

“Any framework for negotiations must be multilateral and must involve all players — all partners — that are essential to this process. A process without one or the other would simply not work, would simply not be realistic,” E.U. foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said.

“Nothing without the United States, nothing with the United States alone,” Mogherini told reporters in Brussels.

Her comments came at an emergency meeting of an international committee coordinating Palestinian development aid and political efforts. Government ministers from Israel and Egypt, as well as the Palestinian Authority prime minister and a U.S. senior official, attended the talks.

The Ad Hoc Liaison Committee meeting was the first of its kind since President Donald Trump recognized Yerushalayim as Israel’s capital.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide, who chaired the talks, said participants agreed to support any initiatives that would re-launch talks on resolving final status issues, including borders, security for Israel, the rights of Palestinian refugees and Yerushalayim.

“We cannot achieve the state building goals until we have negotiations on the outstanding final status issues,” she said.

Soereide said she was “cautiously optimistic” about the chances for peace, “but I underline cautiously because we know that there is a lot of things that need to be done to push this process forward.”

She noted that “increased financial support is urgently needed.”

Israeli Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi told reporters that his country has plans for a series of projects like electricity grid expansion, sewage treatment and a desalination plant for the impoverished Gaza Strip; but Israel wants international money to fund it.

“I did hear some representatives of countries saying that they are going be part of it, that they are going to pledge, they are going to help,” he said. “If it’s financed by the international community, of course it will happen.”

As the meeting began, the E.U. announced a new funding package of 42.5 million euros ($53 million) to help the Palestinians build their new state. It includes substantial support in East Yerushalayim, which the Palestinians hope to make their future capital.

Mogherini said “this is a difficult moment” for the region. She expressed hope that Wednesday’s meeting would help in “restoring some trust and a level of confidence” among all those aiming to promote peace.

The Ad Hoc Liaison Committee is set to meet again in Brussels in late March and in New York in September.

In Slovenia, meanwhile, officials have delayed a decision on whether to recognize the Palestinian territories as a separate state after pressure from Israel and the United States.

Slovenia’s Parliament Foreign Policy Committee suspended its session on Wednesday pending official government position. The native country of U.S. first lady Melania Trump could become only the second E.U. state to recognize a Palestinian state after Sweden.

[islamicvoice-blog]

What Lies Beneath: The US-Israeli Plot to ‘Save’ Gaza

New post https://is.gd/UPc1j0

Israel wants to change the rules of the game entirely. With unconditional support from the Trump Administration, Tel Aviv sees a golden opportunity to redefine what has, for decades, constituted the legal and political foundation for the so-called ‘Palestinian-Israeli conflict.’

While US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy has, thus far, been erratic and unpredictable, his administration’s ‘vision’ in Israel and Palestine is systematic and unswerving. This consistency seems to be part of a larger vision aimed at liberating the ‘conflict’ from the confines of international law and even the old US-sponsored ‘peace process.’

Indeed, the new strategy has, so far, targeted the status of East Jerusalem as an Occupied Palestinian city, and the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees. It aims to create a new reality in which Israel achieves its strategic goals while the rights of Palestinians are limited to mere humanitarian issues.

Unsurprisingly, Israel and the US are using the division between Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, to their advantage. Fatah dominates the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah while Hamas controls besieged Gaza.

A carrot and a stick scenario are being applied in earnest. While, for years, Fatah received numerous financial and political perks from Washington, Hamas subsisted in isolation under a permanent siege and protracted state of war. It seems that the Trump Administration – under the auspices of Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner – are turning the tables.

The reason that the PA is no longer the ‘moderate’ Palestinian leadership it used to be in Washington’s ever self-serving agenda is that Mahmoud Abbas has decided to boycott Washington in response to the latter’s recognition of all of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. True, Abbas’ subservience has been successfully tested in the past but, under the new administration, the US demands complete ‘respect’, thus total obedience.

Hamas, which is locked in Gaza between closed borders from every direction, has been engaging Israel indirectly through Egyptian and Qatari mediation. That engagement has, so far, resulted in a short-term truce, while a long-term ceasefire is still being discussed.

The latest development on that front was the visit by Kushner, accompanied with Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, to Qatar on August 22. There, Gaza was the main topic on the agenda.

So, why is Gaza, which has been isolated (even by the PA itself) suddenly the new gate through which the top US, Israeli and regional officials are using to reactivate Middle East diplomacy?

Ironically, the suffocation of Gaza is particularly intense these days. The entire Gaza Strip is sinking deeper in its burgeoning humanitarian crisis, with August being one of the most gruelling months.

A series of US financial aid cuts have targeted the very socio-economic infrastructure that allowed Gaza to carry on, despite extreme poverty and the ongoing economic blockade.

On August 31, Foreign Policy magazine reported that the US administration is in the process of denying the UN Palestinian refugees agency, UNRWA – which has already suffered massive US cuts since January – of all funds. Now the organization’s future is in grave peril.

The worrying news came only one week after another announcement, in which the US decided to cut nearly all aid allocated to Palestinians this year – $200 million, mostly funds spent on development projects in the West Bank and humanitarian aid to Gaza.

So why would the US manufacture a significant humanitarian crisis in Gaza – which suits the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu well – while, simultaneously, engaging in discussions regarding the urgent need to end Gaza’s humanitarian woes?

The answer lies in the need for the US to manipulate aid to Palestinians to exact political concessions for Israel’s sake.

Months before rounds of Egyptian-sponsored indirect talks began between Israel and Hamas, there has been an unmistakable shift in Israeli and US attitudes regarding the future of Gaza:

On January 31, Israel presented to a high-level conference in Brussels ‘humanitarian assistance plans’ for Gaza at a proposed cost of $1 billion. The plan focuses mostly on water distillation, electricity, gas infrastructure and upgrading the joint industrial zone at the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel. In essence, the Israeli plan is now the core discussion about the proposed long-term ceasefire.

The meeting was attended by Greenblatt, along with Kushner who is entrusted with implementing Trump’s unclear vision, inappropriately termed ‘the deal of the century.’

Two months later, Kushner hosted top officials from 19 countries to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

There is a common thread between all of these activities.

Since the US decided to defy international law and move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem last December, it has been in search of a new strategy that will circumvent the PA in Ramallah.

PA President, Abbas, whose political apparatus is mostly reliant on ‘security coordination’ with Israel, US political validation and financial handouts, has little with which to bargain.

Hamas has relatively greater political capital – as it has operated with less dependency on the Israeli-US-western camp. But years of relentless siege, interrupted by massive, deadly Israeli wars, have propelled Gaza into a permanent humanitarian crisis.

While a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinian groups in Gaza went into effect on August 15, a long-term ceasefire is still being negotiated. According to the Israeli daily ‘Haaretz’, citing Israeli officials, the truce would include a comprehensive ceasefire, opening all border crossings, expansion of the permitted fishing area off the Gaza coast, and the overhauling of Gaza’s destroyed economic infrastructure – among other stipulations.

Concurrently, Palestinian officials in Ramallah are fuming. ‘Chief negotiator,’ Saeb Erekat, accused Hamas of trying to “destroy the Palestinian national project,” by negotiating a separate agreement with Israel. The irony is that the Fatah-dominated Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and PA have done just that for over 25 years.

However, delinking the future of Gaza from the fate of all Palestinians can, indeed, lead to dangerous consequences.

Regardless of whether a permanent truce is achieved between Israel and the Hamas-led Gaza factions, the sad truth is that, whatever grand illusion is harboured by Washington and Tel Aviv at the moment, is almost entirely based on exploiting Palestinian divisions, for which the Palestinian leadership is to be wholly blamed.

– Ramzy Baroud

[islamicvoice-blog]

70 members of Congress urge support for Gaza

New post https://is.gd/AgEl1N

Seventy members of Congress are urging the Trump administration to immediately reinstate US aid in order to alleviate the growing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, Israel has seized a boat and detained almost two dozen people as they were trying to reach Gaza by sea with a cargo of medical supplies.

“In Gaza, more than 50 percent of the children live beneath the poverty level, living on $1.74 per day. A report from the UN noted that 95 percent of tap water is not safe to drink, and last year warned that the Gaza Strip could become ‘unlivable’ well before 2020,” the lawmakers, all Democrats, stated in a letter to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton on Monday.

The lawmakers say that Palestinians in Gaza should not be held hostage to politics.

“We all recognize the serious security and political challenges in Gaza. However, US support for the basic human rights of Palestinians living in Gaza must not be conditioned on progress on those fronts,” the lawmakers state. “For this reason, we strongly urge you to immediately restore all US funding for humanitarian aid in Gaza.”

Since the start of the year, the Trump administration has frozen some $300 million in US contributions to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, as part of its effort to blackmail the Palestinian Authority to go along with “peace” negotiations that would liquidate Palestinian rights under the banner of President Trump’s “ultimate deal” or “deal of the century.”

Already UNRWA has been forced to lay off hundreds of staff, and there have been dire warnings that unless the funding gap is filled, UNRWA will be unable to provide schooling for half a million children and will have to scale back basic humanitarian services.

Basic goods banned

In early July, Israel closed Gaza’s only commercial goods crossing, severely tightening the blockade on virtually everything except food and medicines.

All goods were banned from exiting and vital supplies were prohibited from coming in, including construction materials, water pumps, spare parts, generators, clothing and blankets.

Israel also banned fuel imports, forcing hospitals to begin shutting down.

A week ago, Israel started allowing fuel and cooking gas back into Gaza, but other supplies remained banned.

In 2010 the International Committee of the Red Cross affirmed that Israel’s blockade “constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law.”

Israel’s defense minister Avigdor Lieberman has made clear that the latest measures are further collective punishment against Gaza’s entire population of two million, half of them children, for incendiary kites and balloons launched from Gaza that have burned fields on the Israeli side of the boundary.

This week, the international development charities Oxfam, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Premiere Urgence Internationale said that the “current restrictions further tighten the unlawful blockade” with devastating consequences already being felt.

As a result of Israel’s ban on imports, construction of desperately needed water and sewage treatment facilities for hundreds of thousands of people is now on hold.

In their letter, the 70 US lawmakers also state that the US should push for an increase in Gaza’s electricity supply and ease the blockade, “especially for materials and supplies related to critical projects like medicine, hospital supplies and water treatment.”

“Alleviating the poverty, unemployment, food insecurity and lack of access to adequate health, clean water and electricity in Gaza is a critical first step to improving the security and safety of both Palestinians and Israelis,” the lawmakers add.

One of the authors of the congressional letter is Mark Pocan, a representative from Wisconsin who in 2016 was denied entry to Gaza by Israel.

In April, Pocan and two other lawmakers wrote to the Israeli government again requesting permission to visit the besieged territory.

As this writer told The Real News this week, the desperate situation in Gaza as a result of the blockade has been driving protests under the banner of the Great March of Return for 18 weeks, despite Israel’s violent response and severe collective punishment.

More than 150 Palestinians have been killed, the vast majority unarmed protesters shot by Israeli snipers, and thousands more have been injured:

Israel abducts flotilla boat

On Sunday, Israeli forces seized a boat carrying nearly two dozen activists and journalists aiming to break Israel’s maritime blockade on Gaza.

Flotilla organizers discounted Israel’s claims that its forces had intercepted and “redirected” their vessel to Israel “without incident.”

“According to first-hand evidence that we have been given, the Israeli occupation forces violently attacked our Norwegian-flagged boat Al Awda (The Return) as she was in international waters,” the Freedom Flotilla Coalition said Tuesday.

“Prior to all of our electronic communications being cut to and from our boat, at least four warships had appeared,” the organizers added. “Following some unlawful radio directives to our captain and our insistence that we had a right of innocent passage in international waters, armed, masked soldiers boarded Al Awdawithout permission.”

Israeli soldiers beat passengers and used tasers against them, organizers said.

One of the passengers assaulted was Dr. Swee Chai Ang, a founder of the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians. Dr. Ang was a witness to the 1982 massacres of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugees camps in Beirut during the Israeli occupation of Lebanon.

According to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, two Israeli passengers and two Al Jazeera journalists aboard the boat were released by Israeli authorities. But by Tuesday, 18 others had spent a second night “unlawfully detained in Givon Prison.”

The Gaza-based Al Mezan Center for Human Rights condemned the seizure of the boat, stating that “the closure of Gaza is considered a collective punishment, illegal under international law.”

“Given the Israeli forces’ history of using violence with international activists [as] part of other flotillas, Al Mezan expresses its concern that Israeli forces may subject the activists to ill-treatment or abuse while detaining them,” the group added.

In the early hours of 31 May 2010, Israeli commandos boarded and seized several boats in international waters as they tried to reach Gaza.

Israeli forces carried out a particularly violent armed attack on the largest vessel, Mavi Marmara, killing nine persons. A tenth victim died of his injuries in May 2014.

At least 20 others were seriously injured aboard the Mavi Marmara.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor found that Israeli forces likely committed war crimes when they attacked the Mavi Marmara, but has declined to prosecute the perpetrators.

Organizers of the current flotilla are urging that Norway and other governments intervene to protect activists who are trying to deliver medical aid.

Another boat, Freedom, is currently heading towards Gaza. John Turnbull, the captain of Freedom, told The Real News in a recorded interview published Tuesday that the boat was about 300 miles from Gaza’s shore.

The boat’s progress can be tracked on the Freedom Flotilla Coalition website.

– Electronic Intifada