“The UK is appalled by allegations that UNRWA staff were involved in the 7 October attack against Israel, a heinous act of terrorism that the UK Government has repeatedly condemned,” the UK Foreign Office said in a statement.
“The UK is temporarily pausing any future funding of UNWRA whilst we review these concerning allegations,” it added.
12 out of 13000 UNRWA staff in Gaza are being accused of in some way being involved with Hamas. The UK immediately withdraws all funding.
Why do they not do the same when Israeli soldiers commit war crimes?
Is the UK funding Israel? I wasn’t aware of that.
I’m not sure if there’s direct funding but we certainly continue to support them militarily and sell them weapons via our arms companies
Edit:
According to Campaign Against Arms Trade, between 2016 and 2020, the UK issued single individual export licences for arms sales to Israel to a value of £400m.
Between 2018 and 2020 the British Ministry of Defence bought £46m worth of military equipment from Elbit
Edit 2:
Cleverly said that the UK-Israel trade relationship was worth about £7bn, with more than 400 Israeli tech firms operating in the UK.
That is what you call trade. So no funding, got it.
Trade of military goods is entirely controlled by the government
Indeed. No funding though
UNRWA sacked several staff for their part. UK and others rapidly withdraw funding. Where oh where is the same funding withdrawal from Israel? I do not suggest that the 7th October attack is OK. Let’s just make sure that we apply pressure equally.
What funding does the UK provide to Israel?
Of course, this is all based on nebulous “information from” a government hell bent on as many Palestinians as possible dying with an officially stated policy of lying to achieve their goals.
Add the timing right after the preliminary findings of the ICJ, the fact that perhaps thousands of Palestinians are only alive today because of UN aid, as well as all the other unconfirmed pro-Israel stories all over in just a few hours and the whole thing stinks to high heaven of a coordinated propaganda push.
It’s war. Both sides constantly use propaganda to their advantage. Propaganda is just story-telling. The best propaganda is fact-based, but framed in a particular way that is favorable to the propagandist. I would suggest that Hamas is particularly good at propaganda nowadays.
Israel, on the other hand, relies primarily on established sympathy among older people who formed their positive opinions about Israel back in 70s, 80s, and 90s. Israel was the “little engine that could”: a tiny country surrounded by genocidal autocratic countries determined to exterminate it. Israel was like the Athenians successfully battling the Persian Empire with their small but plucky citizen militia. Believe it or not, Israel was seen as the underdog in those days.
Young people today only know Israel as the right-wing, corrupt shithole is has become under Netanyahu. And Israel isn’t trying very hard to convince them otherwise. The sooner Netanyahu and his religious zealots are gone, the better for everyone.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Earlier, the US State Department announced that it was suspending additional funding to the UN agency, saying it was “extremely troubled” by the allegations of UN staff involvement in the attacks.
Mr Lazzarini added: “To protect the agency’s ability to deliver humanitarian assistance, I have taken the decision to immediately terminate the contracts of these staff members.”
This comes just days after Ms Wong announced a near doubling of the humanitarian funding directed to “conflict-affected populations”, “with a focus on women and children”, in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The Palestinian Authority’s minister for civilian affairs, Hussein Al-Sheikh, said the decision by some countries to pause support for the vital UN agency “entails great political and humanitarian relief risks”.
Mr al-Sheikh urged Western donors to immediately reverse their decision, adding: “We need the maximum support for this international organisation.”
On Friday, an adviser to the Israeli prime minister told the BBC that the 7 October Hamas attacks had involved “people who are on their [UNRWA] salaries”.
The original article contains 721 words, the summary contains 165 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!