UNRWA: Over 50 Gaza aid workers faced abuse in Israeli detention
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees says more than 50 of its aid workers, who had been abducted by Israeli forces, suffered severe abuse in the regime’s detention centers and were also used as human shields.
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s Commissioner-General, wrote on his X account on Tuesday that UNRWA staff members who had been abducted by the Israeli regime reported shocking abuse at the hands of the regime.
“Since the start of the war in October 2023, over 50 UNRWA staff, among them teachers, doctors, and social workers, have been detained and abused,” said Lazzarini.
“They have been treated in the most shocking & inhumane way. They reported being beaten [and] used as human shields,” he continued.
Lazzarini has been citing the testimony of a UNRWA staff member who had been abducted by the Israeli regime and released recently.
The Israeli regime had subjected the UNRWA abductees to “sleep deprivation, humiliation, threats of harm to them and their families, [and] attacks by dogs,” said Lazzarini.
He said the UNRWA abductees had been forced to confess under torture, which is nothing short of outrageous.
The Israeli regime has repeatedly accused UNRWA staff members of being “Hamas operatives,” but independent investigations have discredited these claims.
The Israeli regime’s parliament (Knesset) passed a law in October that banned UNRWA from activity within the occupied territories.
The Knesset also revoked the 1967 treaty that allowed UNRWA to carry out its mission. The ban has greatly restricted UNRWA’s ability to operate in Gaza and the occupied territories.
Lazzarini said at the time that the move violated international law and was “the latest in the ongoing campaign to discredit UNRWA and delegitimize its role toward providing human-development assistance and services to Palestine refugees.”
On March 18, the Israeli regime assaulted Gaza and effectively ended its ceasefire agreement with the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas.
Since then, the Israeli regime has put Gaza on total blockade and barred the entry of all humanitarian aid, which, according to the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), has driven Gaza’s population toward phase 5 famine.
Phase 5 famine is the highest phase of the IPC Acute Food Insecurity scale, and is classified when an area has the deaths of two people or four children for every 10,000 people each day due to outright starvation or to the interaction of malnutrition and disease.
Dozens of nations and organizations have been advising the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in order to draw up an advisory opinion on the Israeli regime's humanitarian obligations, as the occupying entity, to Palestinians.
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