The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Monday Israel had blocked him from entering the war-torn and besieged Gaza Strip where the UN has warned of impending famine.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said he had “intended to go into Rafah today, but was informed my entry had been declined,” speaking in a Cairo joint press conference with Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.
Lazzarini later wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that he had been denied entry by “Israeli authorities”, a claim Israel did not immediately comment on.
The UN agency, which coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, has been in crisis since Israel accused about a dozen of its 13,000 Gaza employees of being involved in the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
This led multiple donor nations including the United States to suspend funding although some of them have since resumed or increased it including Spain, Canada and Australia.
Israeli government spokesman Avi Hyman earlier Monday reiterated what he called Israel’s position, that “UNRWA is a front for Hamas”.
Shoukry expressed Cairo’s “complete support” for the agency and criticised “unilateral actions to restrict UNRWA funding due to baseless accusations”.
The Hamas attack of October 7 resulted in about 1,160 deaths, most of them civilians, according to official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Hamas-controlled Gaza has killed at least 31,726 people, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.
