BEIJING: The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Thursday warned of collective punishment of Gazans, calling for effort to prevent the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip from worsening.
Spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a regular press briefing that it is important to ensure the operation of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), a UN body providing essential services to Palestinian refugees.
“It matters to the continuity of humanitarian relief efforts, guarantee of subsistence of the Gaza people, and last hope for the survival of those refugees on the verge of despair,” said Wang.
The spokesperson’s remarks came after an array of UN agencies including the World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization, and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued on Wednesday a joint statement, saying that the decisions by some countries to pause funds from UNRWA will have “catastrophic consequences” for the people of Gaza, and calling for them to be reconsidered.
“The world cannot abandon the people of Gaza,” they said in the statement.
Some donors, including the United States, Canada and Britain, have decided to suspend funding to the UNRWA after Israel accused several UNRWA employees of suspected involvement in the October 7 attack on Israel. The UNRWA has also initiated an investigation into the allegations.
The suspension would force UNRWA to halt all its activities in Gaza in a few weeks, the UN relief agency’s commissioner-general has said. And UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has described the agency as “the backbone of all humanitarian response in Gaza.”
“We support the UN in conducting an independent, impartial and objective investigation. At the same time, it should be pointed out that collective punishment of the people of Gaza must be avoided,” said the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Thursday.
Israeli PM says UN agency for Palestinians must close amid fierce fighting
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Wednesday for the closure of the UN Palestinian refugee agency as his forces confirmed it was flooding Hamas’s attack tunnels and conducted more air strikes in Gaza amid the ongoing truce talk.
“It’s time the international community and the UN itself understand that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)’s mission has to end,” Netanyahu told visiting UN delegates, according to his office.
He said UNRWA should be replaced by other aid agencies “if we are going to solve the problem of Gaza as we intend to do.”
Israel has accused some UNRWA staff of involvement in the October 7 Hamas assault in southern Israel that triggered the deadly conflict in Gaza. Donors including the United States and Britain have paused funding pending an investigation, but aid agencies say ending UNRWA operations would wreck humanitarian efforts in devastated Gaza.
Earlier, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described UNRWA as “the backbone of all humanitarian response in Gaza” and appealed to all countries to “guarantee the continuity of UNRWA’s life-saving work.”
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) also warned on Wednesday that cutting funds to the UN agency would have “catastrophic consequences” for people in Gaza.
“No other entity has the capacity to deliver the scale and breadth of assistance that 2.2 million people in Gaza urgently need,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva.
