Gaza's social order will fall if Israel stops cooperation, UNWRA warns

Gaza: United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNWRA) warned that social order in Gaza might collapse if Israel proceeds with its threat this month that it will stop all cooperation with the agency.

UNWRA senior emergency officer Louise Wateridge said that the enclave is increasingly fractured, and if the Knesset bills get passed, it will block its cooperation with the agency. This would make it impossible for UNRWA to operate and distribute aid in war-torn Gaza., reported The Guardian.

Wateridhge said that if the agency is no longer able to communicate with the Israeli administration, there will be no deconfliction process, and none of the agency's buildings will be de-conflicted or protected anymore, removing the agency and its work entirely from Gaza.

According to her, there are higher levels of lawlessness already occurring in the Kerem Shalom crossing, but so far, it has not spread across Gaza due to the societal ties among Palestinians and with UNRWA. If people don’t have flour for a day, they understand and trust that the agency will do what it can since their brother or cousin is working in it, she said, they will understand that it is not the agency's fault. But when the agency is removed from the region, “it takes this buffer away, and what’s to say people don’t fight more? I’m surprised social order hasn’t collapsed more than it has. People have been pushed to the brink,” The Guardian quoted her.

Wateridge also points out that the Israeli threat to UNRWA’s future happens at a time when the general consensus in the enclave is that the international community has abandoned them.