UNRWA warns against depriving a whole generation of Palestinian children of education

Philip Lazarini, the general commissioner of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Thursday, warned that the agency’s collapse will be deprived of a full generation of Palestinian children from education, “which will lead to the cultivation of more extremism.”

Lazarini told AFP that there is a “real threat to the agency’s collapse and its explosion” if its severe financial distress continues.

He added that if UNRWA collapsed, “We will definitely sacrifice a generation of children who will be deprived of appropriate education.”

For more than seven decades, UNRWA has provided Palestinian refugees, basic, humanitarian and service assistance such as education and health care.

Lazarini described UNRWA as a “lifeline” for about six million Palestinian refugees distributed in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Lazarini said on Monday that UNRWA can only be replaced with Palestinian institutions, after Israel announced that it encourages other organizations to “take over” in Gaza.

Lazarini said on Monday during a press conference in Geneva: “The alternative is not a non -governmental organization, and not another United Nations organization,” stressing that “the only continuing alternative is the Palestinian institutions affiliated with the Palestinian state.”

In the Gaza Strip, which was destroyed by the 15 -month war, UNRWA employs 13,000 people and runs humanitarian operations for other organizations.

At the end of January, Israel suspended UNRWA’s work on its territory under a law acknowledged in October prohibiting the agency’s activity in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Israeli authorities accuse UNRWA employees of being involved in the attack of October 7, 2023.

These accusations prompted senior donors to suspend their agency financing.

UNACHA concluded that nine UNRWA staff were “perhaps involved” in the attack.

On Thursday, Lazarini told France Press: “We are primarily providing services similar to government services.”

He added: “From here, I do not see any non -governmental organization or an international agency that suddenly interferes to provide public services.”

The UN official warned that the loss of educational services provided by UNRWA may be severe.

He said: “If you deprive 100 thousand girls and a boy in Gaza, for example, of education, and if they do not have a future, and if their school is just despair and live between the rubble, then I tell you that we are planting the seeds of more extremism.”

He added, “I think this is a recipe for a disaster.”