Ramallah: The United Nations has expressed concern about Israel’s decision to deny entry visas to its staff.
The organization warned that the move could affect humanitarian work in Palestine and the humanitarian community’s ability to support Palestinians.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the decision significantly affects the humanitarian community’s ability to support the Palestinians.
Dujarric said, “Of course, we are still in contact with the Israeli authorities on this matter and we hope that it will be resolved.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry has refused to issue visas to officials of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, accusing aid agency staff of underestimating the number of Israeli civilians killed or injured in Palestinian attacks.
The Foreign Ministry claimed – as reported by the Israeli Ynet website – that OCHA staff constantly count Israelis killed in Palestinian operations but fail to classify them as “terrorist attacks”.
The ministry said: “OCHA is accused of reporting the killing or harm of Israeli civilians in disputed circumstances, while taking reports of Palestinian casualties at face value and blaming Israel, including clashes between IDF forces and Palestinian militants “
Arab News reached out to UN, OCHA officials and Israel’s foreign ministry for comment, but did not receive a response.
Shawn Jabrin, director general of the al-Haq Palestinian human rights organization, told Arab News that he blames the United Nations for its inaction and negligence, which opposes previous sanctions against international commissions of inquiry and special rapporteurs, which Israel has imposed. was barred from entering the Palestinian territories. , even if Israel needs to cooperate with the United Nations.
Jabrin said it was “no longer surprising” that Israel denied entry visas to the OCHA team because of the lack of protest over Israel’s previous actions.
“OCHA is a body concerned with humanitarian issues, and the denial of entry visas to its team is an Israeli message to the UN that your past complacency will lead to the day when any UN official will be allowed to enter the Palestinian territories until They will not be allowed to enter until Israel approves of their presence,” Jabrin told Arab News.
Israel’s Ministry of Defense, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Palestinian Territories, changed procedures for foreigners entering the territory, stipulating that they obtain an entry visa outside Israel one month prior to their date of arrival.
This Israeli policy was described by Jabrin as an attempt to “silence and halt the work” of international institutions that criticize Israel’s policy in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
“Israel wants, through this policy, to re-engineer the international community so that it does not criticize it, and the silence of the UN has given Israel a ladder to climb on its back,” Jabrin said.
Meanwhile, on the 35th anniversary of the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada (1987–1993), which occurred on 9 December, Israeli security and military circles warned of their fears of a third intifada in the West Bank.
The deteriorating security situation in the West Bank is another challenge after the Iranian threat.
Egypt has also expressed deep concern about the deteriorating security in the West Bank and the continuation and escalation of Israeli killings of Palestinians.
Since the beginning of the year, 165 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, and another 54 in the Gaza Strip.
In a related development, Israel’s designated Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir has warned that Palestinians may soon face unprecedented punitive measures.
He threatened in an interview with an Israeli channel on Friday that the occupied Palestinian lands would be annexed, leaving the Palestinians to manage their own affairs without any rights or privileges.
Ben-Gvir said that he does not differentiate between Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Palestinians living in Israel.
He said that everyone who is disloyal to the State of Israel should be expelled and that he would divide the Al-Aqsa Mosque between Muslims and Jews.
Dana Ben Shimon, a prominent Israeli correspondent for Israel Today newspaper, told Arab News that the expectations and projections of Israeli security services about the possibility of a third intifada have nothing to do with the election of a new Israeli government.
“It is not important whether you call this the third intifada or a wave of violence, but the problem is that Israeli security services are concerned about the quantity, quality and development of attacks, especially after we saw the twin bombings in Jerusalem last month. At the end,” he said.