CAIRO: The fall of UNRWA would be catastrophic for global security and peace, said a Kuwaiti diplomat on Thursday. In a speech to the urgent meeting of permanent representatives to the Arab League on the alarming situation in Palestine, Kuwait Permanent Representative Ambassador Talal Al-Mutairi reiterated his country’s support of Jordan’s request to hold the meeting on the background of the Zionist occupation’s parliament’s vote to ban UNRWA operations in occupied Palestine.

Ambassador Al-Mutairi expressed utter condemnation of the so-called parliament for its inhumane law, which lacked legitimacy on the level of humanitarian and international laws and norms.

This step is part of a long list of violations against international and humanitarian laws and goes against UN resolution UNSC 2417, which condemned the starving of civilians during the conflict, he added.

GAZA: A young girl looks on as a displaced Palestinian woman cooks inside a UN school-turned shelter in the Nasser district of Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip on October 25, 2024. — AFP

He also expressed abhorrence towards the blocking of humanitarian aid aimed at civilians, saying that such aid was a lifeline to Palestinians and without it death would be certain. Since the brutal war on the Gaza Strip and Palestine began, Palestinian rights continued to be violated daily and the so-called Knesset’s “illegitimate” decision added to the offense against Palestinians, the Kuwaiti diplomat asserted.

He went on to say that since establishment in December of 1949, UNRWA has always been the target of smearing campaigns questioning its legitimacy and important role, despite the UN agency being a fulfillment to UNGA resolution 194 especially article 11, which called for the return of refugees to their homes. Within this frame, Al-Mutairi expressed Kuwait’s support in the letter of UNRWA’s Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini on October 28, 2024, which warned of the consequences of the Knesset’s decision.

The Kuwaiti diplomat reaffirmed Kuwait’s support to UNRWA, revealing that his country had offered $27 million in aid to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank since the Gaza aggression began. He pointed out that Kuwait cooperated with Jordan and Slovenia back in May in New York in the joint initiative commitment aimed at supporting UNRWA politically and financially. Ambassador Al-Mutairi expressed condolences to UNRWA workers who have died in the Zionist occupation’s assault on Palestine, and renewed Kuwait’s calls for the UNSC to intervene and end the genocide against Palestinians. — KUNA