February 01, 2024
UNWRA fund cut collective punishment
A Palestinian New Zealander says the Government is joining in with Israel’s illegal collective punishment if it cuts funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which provides support to Palestinians in Gaza.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said Foreign Minister Winston Peters was trying to find more information about allegations from Israel that a dozen UNWRA staff were involved in the October 7 attack by Hamas fighters in southern Israel.
Taimor Hazou says Israel has a record of making accusations against non-government organisations which turn out to not be true.
He says UNWRA has 30,000 staff providing health, education, welfare and other services not just in Gaza but in the West Bank and several countries in the Middle East- and even if the accusations against the nine staff UNWRA has sacked turn out to be true, it’s the equivalent of shutting down New Zealand’s Ministry of Social Development if three staffers do wrong.
“And you would never do that and this is one of the things, ne of the narratives, the discourses that happens to Palestinians all that time, is that if there’s one bad apple the whole batch are blamed and that’s collective punishment. In a mature democracy you wait to see the results of the investigation and then you make rational decisions on that,” Mr Hazou says.