“The plug has been pulled on humanitarian services.
Over the past days, utility providers have severed electricity and water one by one to UNRWA’s schools, health centres, and other service provision points across occupied #EastJerusalem.
These actions come against the backdrop of the anti-UNRWA laws amended late last month by the Israeli parliament, forcing utility providers to suspend services to UNRWA.
We need electricity to light up classrooms and offices, to keep life-sustaining medication cooled, and to heat buildings.
We need water to keep our premises clean, and simply to wash hands.
Electricity and water are among the basic preconditions of dignified healthcare and education.
In October last year, the @CIJ_ICJ ruled that Israel has the obligation to ensure access to the essential supplies of daily life, including food, water, medical supplies and services, and to facilitate the work of UNRWA in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem where Israel is not entitled to exercise sovereignty.
It further noted that the Israeli laws were impeding UNRWA’s operations.
The amendments take these Israeli laws a step further.
These cuts are a deliberate effort to weaponise basic necessities in the attacks by Israel – a @UN member state – against UNRWA, at the expense of critical services and access to fundamental rights for #Palestine Refugees. They are designed to end our longstanding presence in East Jerusalem, which in itself predates the Israeli occupation.”
—
@GRFriedrich , Director of UNRWA Affairs in the Occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem
https://x.com/UNRWA/status/2017150407751901274