Israel Travel Crackdown Threatens UN Relief Ops

by Thalif Deen

Rene Aquarone, UNRWA spokesperson, says the new Israeli restrictions would prevent Palestinians moving from one city to another without a permit, valid only for 30 days.

"We are very concerned because if these announced measures are put into effect, they will cripple the activities of the agency, its relief and emergency activities, and its normal activities," he says.

UNRWA has fewer than 100 international staffers but some 14,000 Palestinians working in occupied territories. The agency employs another 22,000 Palestinians throughout the Middle East providing education, health and social services to refugees.

The new Israeli measures also bar Palestinians holding Jerusalem identity cards from travelling to the occupied territories. A number of UNRWA drivers would be affected.

Aquarone says the new restrictions are "not in conformity with the responsibilities of Israel as an occupying power, and certainly not in accordance with its responsibilities to a United Nations agency."

Peter Hansen, UNRWA's head, criticiized last month's Israeli military attacks on Palestinian refugee camps and civilians. Officials say Israel has since blacklisted the agency.

Hansen expressed outrage over killings in the West Bank and Gaza, where the dead were denied burial rites. "I think it is particularly appalling that religious observances in connection with death and burial have been grossly violated," Hansen said at the time.

He also said that 185 UNRWA, Red Crescent and Red Cross ambulances were hit by deliberate Israeli fire.

UNRWA provides humanitarian services to some 1.5 million refugees who live in camps in the West Bank and Gaza. It does not police or administer any of the camps, which fall either under Israeli or Palestinian control.

Last week, the agency responded to what it said were unfounded charges made by an Israeli newspaper that UN officials were collaborating with Palestinian militants.

"No UNRWA school in (the Palestinian refugee camp of) Jenin has ever been used to train children in terrorism. And no UNRWA warehouses have been used as weapons dumps or to produce counterfeit currency," it said.

The UN relief agency also condemned the newspaper's characterization of Hansen as an anti-Semitic "peasant-in-chief."

"This is pure slander and an insult to the intelligence of your readership," the agency said. "When Mr. Hansen spoke about bodies piling up, he was referring to overflowing morgues he had seen with his own eyes. The mass graves he described were created outside Ramallah Hospital by medical staff and were filmed by the international media, as were the Israeli helicopter attacks on Jenin camp and other civilian areas."

Addressing the World Health Assembly in Geneva yesterday, Hansen said his agency's efforts to provide emergency assistance to Palestinians were compromised by obstacles to humanitarian access.

Curfews and closures prevented 60 percent of UNRWA staff in the West Bank from reaching their duty stations, he said. One UNRWA staff member was killed inside an ambulance and 29 school children in UNRWA care were killed in the West Bank and Gaza.

He also told the Assembly that an UNRWA staff member and operations officer was arrested and put in a detention center, handcuffed and blindfolded for 56 hours, and denied food for 52 hours.

"These are completely unacceptable conditions for us to work under," he said, adding that UN member states had an obligation to respect humanitarian law under the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Since the current Palestinian uprising began in September 2000, about 1,276 Palestinians have been killed, of whom about 20 percent were children younger than 18 years of age. The number injured is estimated at 30,714. During the same period, about 432 Israelis have been killed, with 3,690 wounded, according to UN figures.

The World Bank, UN Development Program, and government of Norway report that recent Israeli military attacks have inflicted damages of about $361 million.

The two towns hit hardest are Nablus, which suffered some $114 million in damages, and Jenin, where the damage is estimated at $83 million.