I recently attended a press conference given by Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, an organization that helps Palestinian refugees. We have been discussing this conference in our previous posts.
He said the United Nations really wants fuel to go to Gaza to provide electricity for essential services. Israel says that Hamas took fuel from UNRWA and has about 500,000 liters of it. Earlier this week, the Israeli army mentioned that UNRWA should seek permission from Hamas if they want to obtain something.
I asked Lazzarini further if this is true. He said he had seen news about Hamas having enough fuel for six weeks, but he admitted that he didn’t know anything about it at all. “He said to me that he doesn’t know what Hamas has or doesn’t have in Gaza. ”
He said that there is a store of fuel in Gaza that holds up to 400,000 liters. This fuel was brought in as part of a previous agreement between Qatar and Israel before the conflict started on October 7th.
Lazzarini explained that in order for UNRWA to obtain the fuel, they need agreements called “deconfliction” with Israel. This means that the UN wants assurance from Israel that the area is secure for its workers and will not be targeted for bombing. He said in the past few days, UNRWA was able to get “some fuel” from this storage place after an agreement was made. However, he said that there were still things left to discuss and it is Israel’s decision whether or not to allow access.
When asked if Hamas took the UN fuel, Lazzarini said “no” once more.
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UN ‘doesn’t know’ if Hamas has stocked fuel – Agency head
