March 4, 2024

The following statement was issued March 2, 2024, by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on Resistance News Network. As of March 1, the European Union is resuming funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in the amount of 50 million euros following its defunding in early February.

The Department of Refugee Affairs and the Right of Return in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine stressed the role and responsibilities of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in transporting and delivering relief aid to all areas of the Gaza Strip, including the Gaza and North governorates, emphasizing that the international neglect of this role contributes to the realization of the occupation’s plans to end UNRWA’s work and liquidate the right of return for refugees.

The department emphasized that the aerial aid drops have contributed to reducing UNRWA’s work, which possesses the capabilities, equipment, expertise and human teams to carry out relief operations for our besieged and starving people in Gaza and the North, especially in light of the randomness and limited scope of the aerial operations, which do not ensure the delivery of aid to all our people there.

The department added: “Anyone who can coordinate an airdrop can also coordinate for UNRWA’s aid trucks and convoys to fulfill their responsibilities in relieving our people there. The neglect of UNRWA by these international entities has political dimensions that intersect with the occupation’s plans to stop UNRWA’s work in the Strip.”

The department concluded its statement by affirming that the starvation war against our people in the [Gaza] Strip is ongoing in full view of the entire world, with no serious international deterrent to stop it.

There is a persistence from the international community to play the role of a spectator, conspirator, or to turn a blind eye to what our people in the Gaza Strip are subjected to, which must be met with a global uprising of anger that gathers in squares and capitals, knocks on the doors of international institutions and besieges the embassies of aggression, until the massacre, genocide and starvation war waged against our Palestinian people is stopped.

This statement was lightly edited.