‘Israel has made clear it wants to commit genocide’ ‘Israel has made clear it wants to commit genocide’: Ex-UNRWA official Chris Gunness, a former spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), says the Israeli government is not allowing critical aid into Gaza because it wants to continue its genocidal policies against Palestinians. “There is a litany of – quite frankly – fascistic pretexts” for Israel to maintain its restrictions on humanitarian assistance, Gunness told Al Jazeera. “Let’s be clear on the big picture: Israel has made it clear that it wants to commit a genocide against the Palestinians, it wants to ethnically-cleanse them, and it wants to starve them,” he said, noting that there are millions of aid items waiting to be brought into the enclave. “The big picture is that the reason these items are not being let in … is that there is a genocide going on, there is a collective punishment, there is ethnic cleansing, and there’s a policy of starvation.”

Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity kitchen in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, November 5, 2025 [Haseeb Alwazeer/Reuters]

‘Israel has made clear it wants to commit genocide’: Ex-UNRWA official

 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2025/11/7/live-israel-vows-to-destroy-all-hamas-tunnels-in-gaza-as-attacks-continue?update=4091972 

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Photos: Palestinians protest against Israeli land confiscation in West Bank

https://aje.io/ns9p5r?update=4091938 

UN reiterates call to open all Gaza crossings for aid

A spokesperson for UN chief Antonio Guterres has reiterated that more crossings must be opened to allow unimpeded humanitarian assistance to reach Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Speaking to reporters at UN headquarters in New York, Farhan Haq noted that only two Gaza crossings are currently operating: al-Karara (also known as Kissufim) and Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom).

“At this stage, our point is that now that the ceasefire has taken hold, we need to be able to use all of the crossing points,” Haq said.

He added that this includes crossings along the border with Egypt and into northern Gaza, which has been particularly hard-hit by Israel’s two-year bombardment. “We want all the others to be opened up as soon as possible,” Haq said.    https://aje.io/ns9p5r?update=4091942

Rights group says 168 Palestinian children detained in Israel without charge

Nearly half – 48 percent – of all Palestinian children known to be held in Israeli prisons have not been charged with a crime, a child rights organisation has said.

The most recently available data from the Israel Prison Service showed 350 Palestinian children were detained in Israeli prisons as of September 30, Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-Palestine) reported.

Of those, 168 children had no recorded charge or trial under way – the highest proportion since DCI-Palestine started monitoring detention data in 2008, the group said.

The “arbitrary” detentions violate the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Israel has ratified, DCI-Palestine said, adding that Israel’s prison system is “designed to physically remove, suppress and stifle” children.

An unknown number of Palestinian children are also being held in military detention and interrogation centres.   https://aje.io/ns9p5r?update=4091890 

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UN’s Palestinian aid agency UNWRA ‘at breaking point’ after $450m budget shortfall

Palestinian children gather to receive food at a government school in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

 "Chris Gunness, who was UNRWA’s spokesperson for 11 years until 2019, said donors who had defunded the agency were “guilty of complicity” in a “slow-motion massacre” by starvation: “There are 1.2 million people on UNRWA’s food distribution lists in Gaza who are slipping into starvation right now. By defunding UNRWA, the UK and other countries are also adding to regional instability.

“UNRWA educates 550,000 children in over 700 schools, in the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria as well as Gaza. UNRWA’s health clinics across the Middle East see 7 million patient visits a year. The agency gives food and cash to 2 million people in the most fragile communities across a region at war.

“If the UK government wants to promote regional stability as it claims, they should be increasing funding to UNRWA, not suspending it.” " 

READ MORE... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/25/uns-palestinian-aid-agency-at-breaking-point-after-450m-budget-shortfall

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Video: UN official Chris Gunness, in an interview with Al Jazeera, sobs on live TV over deaths of Palestinian children

• Image Credit: YouTube
• UN official Chris Gunness is brought to tears while being interviewed on television.

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http://gulfnews.com/news/region/palestinian-territories/video-un-official-chris-gunness-sobs-on-live-tv-over-deaths-of-palestinian-children-1.1365722

• By Siham El Najmi, Special to Gulf News
• Published: 13:15 July 31, 2014

Dubai: Sometimes tears are more eloquent than words, UNWRA spokesman Chris Gunness told Gulf News in an interview.

Gunness broke down in tears on Wednesday after a television interview appearance following an Israeli attack on a UN school in Gaza.

“The rights of Palestinians, and even their children, are wholesale denied ... and its appalling,” Gunness, spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), told Al Jazeera Arabic from Occupied Jerusalem.

The interviewer appears to thank him for appearing, upon which Gunness breaks down and weeps. The video has gone viral on social media. Gunness said he didn’t know that the network would share the video which he said was effectively a ‘private moment of grief’.

UNRWA digitizes Palestinian refugee experience, documenting the mass displacement of Palestinians from 1948 to the present day.

"Through over six decades, in times of war and peace, through hope and despair, UNRWA’s photographers were there to capture individual emotions and communal dynamics. Each frame is a snapshot of a history that is indelibly part of the Middle East..."

 More than 760,000 Palestinians -- estimated today to number 4.8 million with their descendants -- were pushed into exile or driven out of their homes in the conflict surrounding Israel's creation in 1948.... They have been prevented from returning ever since.

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees this week unveiled a newly digitized archive documenting the mass displacement of Palestinians from 1948 to the present day.

The archive consists of over half a million negatives, prints, slides, films and videocassettes, covering all aspects of the lives and history of Palestinian refugees since 1948, UNRWA said in a statement.

The first group of photographs were shown on Thursday in an exhibition entitled "The Long Journey" at the Al-Ma'mel Center in East Jerusalem's Old City.

(All photos taken by George Nehmeh/UNRWA.)

"Collective memory is a vital element of communal identity and this rich archive documents one element of Palestinian identity, the refugee experience," UNRWA's Commissioner General, Filippo Grandi, said.

"But for us it was an urgent technical matter as we needed to do something with our rich collection that was literally decaying. Digitization was the only option for preservation and I am grateful to the Welfare Association, Bank of Palestine, PADICO, Wataniyah and PalTel as well as to the Governments of France and Denmark for making this possible."

George Nehmeh, one of UNRWA's leading early photographers, made a short documentary on the digitization process and revisited people and sites he photographed.

"Through over six decades, in times of war and peace, through hope and despair, UNRWA’s photographers were there to capture individual emotions and communal dynamics. Each frame is a snapshot of a history that is indelibly part of the Middle East."

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness told Ma'an that the message of the exihbition was clear: "This is a population who exist, who have a history and is deserving of a future in which they and their children can live in dignity and enjoy full rights."

"At the moment, many are trying to airbrush Palestinian refugees out of the narrative. But the fact that this archive is digitized and in a sense indestructible, means that this narrative is now indelibly part of the intellectual landscape of the Middle East."

1,948 images are available to media, academics, and writers on a newly launched website.

More than 760,000 Palestinians -- estimated today to number 4.8 million with their descendants -- were pushed into exile or driven out of their homes in the conflict surrounding Israel's creation in 1948.

They have been prevented from returning ever since.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=652456

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