As of: May 14, 2024| Reading time: 2 minutes

DrThe links between Hamas and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) appear to be greater than previously known: the Israeli Armed Forces released a video on Channel X on Tuesday that reportedly shows Hamas terrorists in one of the agency’s facilities.

In the video, several armed people can be seen walking through the grounds of an UNRWA warehouse. UN vehicles can also be seen. According to the Israeli institution COGAT (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories), which coordinates the delivery of Israeli aid to the Gaza Strip, the drone footage comes from a warehouse in eastern Rafah. The warehouse aims to be a central hub for aid for the Gaza Strip. The Office for the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories called on the United Nations to investigate.

The United Nations and UNRWA have not yet responded to these accusations. In recent months it has become known that several employees of the relief organization may be involved in the Hamas attack on Israel. They were expelled. Hamas also used the relief organization’s schools and hospitals as places to hide weapons or as a command center.

Therefore, Israel also attacks these targets when Hamas uses them, including on Tuesday. The army said it killed more than 10 Hamas members in an air strike that targeted a command center. The building is said to have been a school. Hamas set up a “war room” in the middle of a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

The Health Authority in the Gaza Strip said that 15 displaced people were killed in the attack on the school. The Health Authority is under Hamas control.

Delivering aid to Gaza through a temporary port

On the other hand, the US Department of Defense said that aid supplies will be delivered to the Gaza Strip for the first time through a temporary port in the coming days. Until now there was no harbor deep enough for large cargo ships.

Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said: “In the coming days, as part of an international effort in coordination with the United Nations and the World Food Program, the United States will begin facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip through the Cyprus sea corridor.” He said Tuesday in Washington.

The plan is for a cargo ship to transport aid supplies from Cyprus directly to a floating dock. The goods are scheduled to be loaded onto other ships there and transported to another mobile dam on the coast. From there they should go to the beach.

It is primarily wars and conflicts that force more and more people around the world to flee their countries. Never before have there been such numbers, according to a survey conducted by a United Nations observatory.

Wars and conflicts have brought the number of people fleeing within their countries to a new high all over the world. At the end of 2023, 75.9 million people were internally displaced – that is, they had fled their communities and found housing elsewhere in their home country. This was reported by the Internally Displaced Persons Observatory (IDMC) in Geneva. This represents an increase of approximately seven percent over the previous year and 50 percent over the previous five years.

In its report, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center distinguishes between the displaced themselves and the number of displaced people. Thus the same person can be evacuated several times within a given period of time. Conflicts in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Gaza Strip accounted for two-thirds of last year’s new displacement in 2023.

The population of the Gaza Strip has been displaced several times

African countries account for nearly half of all internally displaced people worldwide. Many of them are in Sudan: inside the country, more than nine million people fled violence at the end of 2023. In the Gaza Strip, the same people have been displaced several times. At the end of the year, a total of 1.7 million internally displaced persons were registered. In the last three months of 2023 alone after the start of the war, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center counted 3.4 million new displacements, equivalent to 17 percent of the total conflict-related displacements worldwide during the year.

The total number of people who have had to flee their homeland due to wars, conflicts or disasters is much higher. It also takes into account people who have fled across borders to other countries. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, this number reached about 114 million people at the end of 2023. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees fears that the number will rise to 130 million by the end of the year.

According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, nearly 90 percent of internally displaced people were forced to flee their hometowns due to conflict and violence, while others were forced to flee due to disasters. At the end of 2023, there were 7.7 million people displaced by floods, storms, earthquakes, fires and other disasters, and had found refuge elsewhere in their countries of origin.

Preventing conflicts to fail”

The Liaison Office is committed to providing further assistance to countries in caring for internally displaced persons. “The conflict and devastation it has left behind means that millions are unable to rebuild their lives, often for years,” said Alexandra Belak, Director of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, which founded the observatory, said the high number is a „devastating verdict on the failure to prevent conflicts and build peace.”

International law distinguishes between internally displaced persons on the one hand and refugees on the other. Refugees flee oppression, violence and war from their homeland to another country. The Internal Displacement Observatory, based in Geneva, is part of the Norwegian Refugee Council. The center works closely with the United Nations.