Bibi Wants Dismantling of UN Palestinian Refugee Agency
Local Editor
Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for the dismantling of the UN agency that aids millions of Palestinian refugees, claiming it makes anti-‘Israeli' provocations.
Netanyahu further said he had conveyed his message to the US ambassador to the United Nations.
For his part, Adnan Abu Hasna, a Gaza-based spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA], said Netanyahu was pursuing a "fantasy". The United States, ‘Israel's' main ally, was the biggest donor to UNRWA last year, pledging $368 million [£289 million].
In public remarks to his cabinet's weekly meeting, Netanyahu said UNRWA perpetuated, rather than solved, the Palestinian refugee problem and that anti-‘Israeli' incitement was rife in its institutions, which includes schools.
"It is time UNRWA be dismantled and merged with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees," Netanyahu said.
Referring to a meeting he held in occupied al-Quds on Wednesday with US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, Netanyahu said: "I told her it was time the United Nations re-examine UNRWA's existence."
UNRWA was established by the UN General Assembly in 1949 after hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes in the 1948 war that followed the creation of the Zionist entity.
UNRWA says it currently aids five million registered Palestinian refugees in the Middle East.
Chris Gunness, UNRWA's chief spokesman, said in an email to Reuters that only the General Assembly, by a majority vote, could change the agency's mandate.
"In December 2016, UNRWA's mandate was extended for three years by the General Assembly by a large majority," he added.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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