MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/. The amount of humanitarian aid airdropped by the US is not enough to fulfill all the needs of residents in the Gaza Strip, UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini told TASS in an exclusive interview.
"The airdropping is not compensating the absence, for example, of supply by land crossing into the Gaza Strip. And again, UNRWA is the organization being present everywhere, with staff everywhere," he stressed.
According to Lazzarini, currently, no other agency can quickly and efficiently replace UNRWA. "I do not believe that another agency can step in very quickly. The other agencies have been also very clear, we will not have the capacity. So UNRWA will remain an important partner and actor, especially during this acute response, and it should be in our common interest that the agency does not collapse because of lack of funding. And this is the reason why many donors have come back, while others exceptionally decided to support the agency," he added.
In January, a number of countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and the United States, announced they were suspending funding for UNRWA over its suspected links to the radical Palestinian movement Hamas. Lazzarini ordered the dismissal of several employees allegedly involved in the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was established in 1949. Its mission is to provide medical, social and food aid, as well as education, to 5.9 mln refugees in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. UNRWA staff exceeds 30,000. The agency is managed by a commissioner general appointed by the UN secretary general. The organization is funded by donations from UN member states, the European Union and international NGOs and needs about $1.2 bln per year to be fully operational.