WCC reiterates important role of UN relief agency in Gaza, Lebanon

World Council of Churches (WCC) moderator Bishop Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm and director of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs Peter Prove met online with representatives from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Bedford-Strohm said that the exchange with UNRWA officials has confirmed the extremely important role of UNRWA in the present situation both in Gaza and in Lebanon. 

“In a situation where there is no functioning government, UNRWA is the only institution providing effective humanitarian assistance to desperate people,” he said. “I urgently appeal to all parties in the war to avoid everything that keeps UNRWA from doing their work and to actively support them in every possible way. All sides involved in destructive activities must stop the violence and open the door to a path to peace and reconstruction.”

Prove noted that UNRWA is in an impossible position, struggling with reduced funding to fufill its humanitarian mandate and responsibility towards displaced, suffering, and threatened people and communities in the most difficult and dangerous of circumstances.  “They do this on behalf of the entire international community, but at the same time are beset by accusations, acute political pressures and threats of many kinds—including to their very lives—simply for providing a humanitarian response where no one else is able or willing to do.”