Hamas police in Gaza have seized thousands of blankets and food parcels meant for needy residents, UN spokesman Chris Gunness said Wednesday.
Gunness said Hamas police raided a UN warehouse in Gaza City, snatching 3,500 blankets and over 400 food parcels - supplied meant for 500 Palestinian families. He said the incident took place on Tuesday evening, and that it marked the first time Hamas had seized UN aid.
In a statement released Wednesday, UNRWA condemned the theft "in the strongest terms," and demanded that it be "returned immediately." The statement added that the organization "has a strict system of monitoring aid delivery and ensuring that its assistance reaches only the intended beneficiaries," and that officials were present "taking all possible steps to avoid its diversion."
The aid is especially vital now because Gazans are facing hardship after Israel's three-week military offensive against Hamas.
Israeli officials have charged that the group routinely confiscates supplies meant for needy Gazans.
A Hamas government spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
Earlier in the week, meanwhile, former UN and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees chief attorney James Lindsay alleged that the organization does little to check whether its staff or clients are terrorists.
Allegations linking terrorists to UNRWA are not new. Israel has said many times its troops were fired on by gunmen using UNRWA facilities, that UNRWA vehicles transported weapons and that some of its staff members were terrorists.
UNRWA has denied those charges and Israel has often retracted them or found them hard to prove.
The issue, Lindsay wrote in a 67-page critique of the organization, is not intention but oversight.
"UNRWA has taken very few steps to detect and eliminate terrorists from the ranks of its staff or its beneficiaries, and no steps at all to prevent members of terrorist organizations such as Hamas from joining its staff," he wrote.
UNRWA said in response that its staff were prohibited from any political involvement.
UNRWA was created in 1949 by General Assembly Resolution 302 and began operation in May 1950 to service what at the time was 957,000 refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, many of whom been rendered homeless or jobless by the 1948-49 war with Israel, according to Lindsay.
Gunness said Hamas police raided a UN warehouse in Gaza City, snatching 3,500 blankets and over 400 food parcels - supplied meant for 500 Palestinian families. He said the incident took place on Tuesday evening, and that it marked the first time Hamas had seized UN aid.
In a statement released Wednesday, UNRWA condemned the theft "in the strongest terms," and demanded that it be "returned immediately." The statement added that the organization "has a strict system of monitoring aid delivery and ensuring that its assistance reaches only the intended beneficiaries," and that officials were present "taking all possible steps to avoid its diversion."
The aid is especially vital now because Gazans are facing hardship after Israel's three-week military offensive against Hamas.
Israeli officials have charged that the group routinely confiscates supplies meant for needy Gazans.
A Hamas government spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
Earlier in the week, meanwhile, former UN and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees chief attorney James Lindsay alleged that the organization does little to check whether its staff or clients are terrorists.
Allegations linking terrorists to UNRWA are not new. Israel has said many times its troops were fired on by gunmen using UNRWA facilities, that UNRWA vehicles transported weapons and that some of its staff members were terrorists.
UNRWA has denied those charges and Israel has often retracted them or found them hard to prove.
The issue, Lindsay wrote in a 67-page critique of the organization, is not intention but oversight.
"UNRWA has taken very few steps to detect and eliminate terrorists from the ranks of its staff or its beneficiaries, and no steps at all to prevent members of terrorist organizations such as Hamas from joining its staff," he wrote.
UNRWA said in response that its staff were prohibited from any political involvement.
UNRWA was created in 1949 by General Assembly Resolution 302 and began operation in May 1950 to service what at the time was 957,000 refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, many of whom been rendered homeless or jobless by the 1948-49 war with Israel, according to Lindsay.
Source: Jerusalem Post
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