Malta and the EU should continue applying pressure on Israel to allow aid into the Gaza Strip and respect international law, the head of the UN humanitarian and relief agency for Palestinians has said.
The director of UNRWA affairs in the occupied West Bank, Roland Friedrich said making sure aid is allowed into Gaza was “part of protecting and living up to the principles of the rules based international order”.
Pointing to recent “possible diplomatic steps to increase pressure” on the issue, Friedrich said “if the EU and Malta want to live up to those principles, I think the tools are out there and have to be used”.
Friedrich was speaking to Times of Malta shortly after Malta backed a Dutch proposal to review an EU-Israel trade agreement over concerns about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
While acknowledging that “important steps” were being taken, he stressed “change on the ground” was needed, however.
“There are clear commitments by the European Union… to the rules-based international order and making sure aid goes into the Gaza Strip is part of that order,” he said.
“We would encourage all member states to live up to these commitments, to ensure that the duty bearers – primarily the State of Israel, but also armed actors such as Hamas – respect international law at all times during the conflict.”
Last week, Israel began to allow limited aid into the conflict-stricken Palestinian enclave after an almost three-month blockade on aid entering the region. One top UN official called the first 93 trucks allowed into the region “a drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed”, however.
Friedrich noted that, as of last week, the UN had around 9,000 trucks loaded with supplies waiting to enter Gaza.
On Wednesday, thousands of desperate Palestinians stormed a UN warehouse in central Gaza as experts warned starvation was looming for one in five people in the region.
UNRWA director for the West Bank, Roland Friedrich said Malta has an important role to play in discussions about Palestine. Photo: Jonathan Borg‘Malta has a voice’
Noting that Malta had played a “very constructive role within the European Union, but also bilaterally”, Friedrich said that while the country was small, “it has links in the region and it also enjoys trust in the region. So, in that regard, Malta’s voice is being heard”.
“Malta does make significant contributions… and does make a contribution to UNRWA too [and] we’re very grateful for that. And the fact there’s a strong understanding of the importance of having a just and fair solution to the conflict gives it a voice,” said Friedrich.
Looking ahead to a UN conference on a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine scheduled to take place in June, he urged Malta to “continue to support the UN’s efforts, because what happens in the Mediterranean matters for the whole of Europe”.
“The distance between the EU’s southern border, Cyprus and the Gaza Strip is a couple of hundred kilometres. So, what happens there matters directly and indirectly for Europe,” said Friedrich.
Shortly after the interview took place, Prime Minister Robert Abela said Malta planned to formally recognise Palestinian statehood at the June conference.
“I think there’s a strong sense in Malta of wanting to be on the right side of history,” said Friedrich.
“We hope Malta continues to be a strong advocate for UNRWA within the EU and other parts of the region where Malta has influence, particularly with Arab countries, because what happens on the ground matters,” he said.
“It matters for Palestinians, the people of the Mediterranean, Israelis and it matters also for the broader multilateral system that we all benefit from.
“The understanding that Malta is a small but important country is there, and it’s right.”
A boy carries a box of relief supplies from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private US-backed aid group that has bypassed the longstanding UN-led system in the territory, as displaced Palestinians return from an aid distribution centre in Gaza. Photo: AFP‘Extremely difficult’
Turning to developments in the West Bank – a partly Palestinian administered area to the west of Jordan that has been under Israeli occupation since the 1967 Six-Day War – Friedrich described conditions in the area as “extremely difficult”.
Noting the region had been “completely closed off” since the start of the war on October 7, with “very few” people allowed to enter Israel, Friedrich said this had led to rising unemployment.
“Before the war, up to 200,000 Palestinians from the West Bank used to work in Israel. So, it was a huge source of income that has stopped,” he said, noting that unemployment had risen to as high as 60% in some areas.
Meanwhile, construction of “illegal settlements… has actually picked up under the current Israeli government, and we see an increase in the pace of construction”, he said.
“That basically means that Palestinian statehood, territorial contiguity, is becoming increasingly difficult… the horizon for a two-state solution is rapidly shrinking.”
On Thursday, Israel announced the creation of 22 new settlements in the West Bank. Such settlements are regularly condemned by the United Nations as illegal under international law and are seen as one of the main obstacles to lasting peace.
Describing settler violence against Palestinians as taking place with “almost complete impunity”, Friedrich said the UN had recorded more than 1,000 incidents of settler violence so far this year “and there’s no accountability for this”.
Meanwhile, “heavily militarised” Israeli security checkpoints made it “very difficult” to move between cities in the region while posing a risk to Palestinians in the area, he said, noting 2023 and 2024 had been the “deadliest” in the West Bank since the UN started collecting casualty figures in 2005.
Friedrich said the situation had been made worse by a “new extremely aggressive Israeli operation in the northern West Bank that is targeting a number of refugee camps”, demolishing hundreds of homes.
“The stated aim of the operation is to fight terrorist groups. But, since mid-February, there’s been no fighting in any of those locations anymore.”
A displaced Palestinian youth ferries a bag of food aid on his shoulders after people stormed a World Food Programme warehouse in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on May 28. Photo: Eyad Baba/AFP‘No alternative’
While Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank have prompted international outcry, how does Friedrich respond to those who argue Israel is doing what it feels necessary to guarantee its security?
“All states are bound by the laws of war, and any military response has to be done in a manner that protects civilians. It’s a key principle of international humanitarian law, of precaution and professionality,” he said.
“The United Nations has been very clear and strongly condemned the heinous terrorist attack of Hamas on the seventh of October – there’s no excuse for that. At the same time, the pathway to prevent that from happening is a fair and just solution in the interest of everyone living in Israel and Palestine,” said Friedrich.
“To take away the root causes of radicalisation, despair, extremism… you need to have progress towards a Palestinian state. There is no alternative; that was true in the 1980s, 1990s and is even more true today.”