Nick Schifrin:
UNRWA was established after the creation of the state of Israel as the primary U.N. agency to serve the Palestinian population. In the decades since, it has come to provide some six million Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied territories not only humanitarian assistance, but education and health care.
Israel has argued that UNRWA staff helped commit the Hamas terror attacks on October the 7th, 2023. The U.N. has said nine UNRWA staff may have been involved and were fired.
To understand the status of UNRWA and its future, we get two views, William Deere, director of UNRWA’s Washington, D.C., office, and Assaf Orion, a retired brigadier general with the Israeli Defense Forces, now a fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Thanks very much to both of you. Welcome to the “News Hour.”
Bill Deere, let me start with you.
What is going on with UNRWA? As we said earlier, there is an official ban that has gone in effect, but you’re still operating. So what’s its status?
