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Added on the 29/01/2024 12:58:58 - Copyright : AFPTV - First images
The European Commission announces it is clearing a 50-million-euro payment to the Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, which was under review following Israeli claims its staff participated in Hamas's October 7 attack. Commission spokesman Eric Mamer tells reporters the funds would be "implemented through international partners, such as, for example, the Red Cross and the Red Crescent." SOUNDBITE
The United States is calling for "an urgent investigation" into the killing of Palestinian-American teenager Tawfiq Abdel Jabbar in the West Bank, US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel says. SOUNDBITE
Vedant Patel, the US Department of State deputy spokesperson, says that Israel should let the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA into Gaza, after he was denied entry. SOUNDBITE
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urges the UN agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) to address allegations its staff were involved in attacking Israel, but distanced himself from calls for its end. "UNRWA has played and continues to play an absolutely indispensable role in trying to make sure that men, women and children who so desperately need assistance in Gaza actually get it," Blinken tells reporters. "That only underscores the importance of UNRWA tackling this as quickly as effectively and as thoroughly as possible," he says after the United States suspended funding. SOUNDBITE
Smoke billows and gunshots ring out during renewed clashes between members of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah movement and Islamist militants in the Ain al-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of the coastal Lebanese city of Sidon. IMAGES