Wong defends UN refugee agency delivering Palestine aid
A United Nations aid agency is best placed to deliver aid to Gaza and this fact must be acknowledged after Israel attacked its credibility, the government says.
Penny Wong
Children are starving and the situation in Gaza is catastrophic, Australia’s foreign minister said during an impassioned defence of humanitarian aid for Palestinians.
Penny Wong criticised the lack of aid being facilitated by Israel into the strip, despite international court rulings and legal requirements, as she backed the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which has itself been attacked by Israel.
“We don’t want children to starve and we don’t want innocent Palestinians to starve,” she said.
Rattling off a list of figures, Senator Wong outlined the dire situation in Gaza and accused Israel of not allowing enough aid through.
Aid delivery in October dwindled to the lowest daily average since November 2023 and is just seven per cent of what it was in October 2023, the minister said.
Almost two million people are facing acute food insecurity and 1.9 million people have been displaced, many several times over.
“We know that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is unacceptable, we know that the (International Court of Justice) and international law requires Israel to facilitate aid into Gaza, but that has been getting worse,” she said.
“It is clearly not flowing with consequences to civilians, including children, so yes, we take a view on UNRWA because it is critical.”
She reiterated calls for a ceasefire, for Hamas to release Israeli hostages and for more aid to be allowed into Gaza.
Critics, led by Israel, have called for aid to be distributed by other agencies, but none could fulfil that need at the scale required, Senator Wong told a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra.
“It may be that in a year’s time there will be a different system, but I don’t see it being contested that UNRWA is the backbone and really the only organisation that can actually facilitate delivery within Gaza,” she said.
Australia has also criticised laws passed by the Israeli Knesset that will prevent the agency from operating on its soil – which would then impact its ability to deliver aid to Gaza – after Israel accused it of being linked to Hamas.
The UN agency has denied the allegation, saying it didn’t knowingly shelter or allow terrorists within its ranks.
The federal government has come out against the laws after ruling out any systemic link between the agency and Hamas, which Australia considers a terrorist organisation.
“Our focus really is on encouraging Israel not to implement the legislation,” Foreign Affairs Department assistant secretary Beth Delaney said.
Extra probity requirements were added to an agreement with the agency to allow for $6 million in aid designated for shelter and hygiene kits to “minimise the risk that money would fall into the wrong hands”, deputy secretary Craig Maclachlan said.
“It built in additional checks and balances and, indeed, the way in which we funded the activities through that agreement, themselves, were more constrained,” he said.
Hamas killed about 1200 people and took 251 hostages when it invaded southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
By: Dominic Giannini/AAP
