Israel: UNRWA Ban
Debate between Judith Cummins and Emily Thornberry(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
UNRWA staff are expected to uphold neutrality, and receive compulsory training on humanitarian principles. It shares staff names and ID numbers with host countries. It has its 1,300 buildings inspected quarterly, and it commissioned a report from a group led by a former Foreign Secretary of France, who concluded that UNRWA upholds the principle of humanitarian neutrality. While of course there are changes that can be made, does my right hon. Friend agree that the recommendations are relatively peripheral, and fundamentally UNRWA does deserve the trust of the international community?
Anneliese Dodds
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for her comments, and all the work that her Select Committee is undertaking on these issues. We should state, as a new UK Government, that we were appalled by the allegations that those involved in the 7 October attacks on Israel might have included UNRWA staff. It was absolutely right that investigations took place within UNRWA to determine what happened, and that there was decisive action. That was fundamental, actually; it was incredibly important.
My right hon. Friend referred to Catherine Colonna’s report. It underlines the need for neutrality, and I mentioned previously that the UK Government are determined to play our part in ensuring that the Colonna report is implemented, including by allocating £1 million to that end. We are very clear that the kind of change that we could see around the position on UNRWA recently cannot be linked to discussions around the Colonna report. Decisive action, which the UK Government supported, has been taken, and UNRWA is needed to support humanitarian aid right now in Gaza.