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Monday, January 18, 2016

Electronic Intifada: UN database for Gaza aid may give Israel targets to attack — secret memo

The UN was warned that its database of potential aid recipients in Gaza could provide Israel with targets for future attacks, a document obtained by The Electronic Intifada reveals. Diplomats and UN officials were also warned that plans for rebuilding Gaza after it was attacked by Israel in 2014 violated international law.

The UN-backed Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism (GRM) is illegal and violates the very “right to life” of the Palestinian people, according to a confidential legal opinion by a law professor who analyzed the mechanism for a major aid agency that works closely with the UN.

The Electronic Intifada is publishing the full text of the GRM for the first time, along with the legal opinion. Both documents are below. Recall that in 2014, The Electronic Intifada revealed that the GRM, the UN-brokered agreement that was supposedly going to facilitate reconstruction, would effectively reinforce Israel’s control over Gaza.

But the UN, the Palestinian Authority and Israel have kept the actual text of the GRM secret, despite demands for transparency from Palestinians whose ability to rebuild their lives has remained hostage to its suffocating restrictions.

The expert who wrote the legal opinion, the University of Nottingham’s Professor Nigel White, warned that the UN was becoming an active participant in Israel’s crimes, including enforcing the blockade Israel has imposed on Gaza since 2007.

White, co-director of the Nottingham International Law and Security Centre, is considered one of the world’s leading experts on United Nations law.

Full Article 
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/un-database-gaza-aid-may-give-israel-targets-attack-secret-memo

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