Former top diplomats call on Switzerland to keep UNRWA funding
The Swiss House of Representatives decided in September that Switzerland should stop funding the UNRWA.
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Listening: Former top diplomats call on Switzerland to keep UNRWA funding
Around twenty former Swiss state secretaries, ambassadors and Middle East specialists have signed a letter calling on the Swiss senate not to stop payments to the UN Palestinian Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
The House of Representatives decided in September that Switzerland should stop funding the UNRWA.
In the letter, the signatories write that no non-governmental organisation, not even the Red Cross, can replace the UN Palestinian Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
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Swiss parliamentarians want to stop UNRWA funding
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On Monday, one of the two chambers of parliament in Bern voted to immediately stop payments to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
The House’s decision was fuelled by rumours based on “unfounded interpretations and not on facts and the reality of the human suffering of a maltreated population”. This is according to the letter, whose signatories include former Swiss State Secretary for International Finance Jacques de Watteville and former Federal Prosecutor Carla del Ponte, wrote.
In particular, it is wrong to claim that UNRWA is an ally of Hamas, according to the letter, which was reported by Le Temps and Blick on Thursday and obtained by news agency Keystone-SDA.
Translated from German by DeepL/jdp
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