Israel lambastes ‘one-sided’ UNRWA statement

The Foreign Ministry slams UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, over a “one-sided” statement it released yesterday about the current violence in Israel.

“This statement is one-sided and anti-Israel, ignoring completely and absurdly the wave of Palestinian terrorism and attacks on Israeli civilians,” the ministry’s spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon says. “UNRWA sins against its designation and turns itself into, not for the first time, a political mouthpiece and a pawn of the Palestinians.”

UNRWA’s statement, published Monday by spokesman Chris Gunness, said the organization is “deeply alarmed by the escalating violence and widespread loss of civilian life in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel.” It then went on to list, in some detail, the deaths and injuries of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank at the hands of Israeli troops.

It criticizes Israel’s use of live ammunition, saying it raises “serious concerns about the excessive use of force that may be contrary to international law enforcement standards.”

The statement did not mention at all the various incidents in which Palestinian terrorists attacked, and in several cases killed, Israeli civilians.

— Raphael Ahren