{"id":314709,"date":"2026-01-12T17:13:03","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T22:13:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/?post_type=document&p=314709"},"modified":"2026-01-12T17:13:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T22:13:03","slug":"unrwa-commissioner-general-briefing-the-pope-on-the-urgent-need-for-global-support-to-protect-education-and-vital-services-for-palestine-refugees","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/unrwa-commissioner-general-briefing-the-pope-on-the-urgent-need-for-global-support-to-protect-education-and-vital-services-for-palestine-refugees\/","title":{"rendered":"UNRWA Commissioner-General: Briefing the Pope on the urgent need for global support to protect education and vital services for Palestine Refugees"},"content":{"rendered":"
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12 January 2026<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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From Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA Commissioner-General as posted on his official X account (previously known as Twitter)\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

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It was an honour to have a private audience with His Holiness Pope Leo XIV.<\/p>\n

I briefed him on the immense suffering endured by Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as well as on the political and financial challenges confronting UNRWA.<\/p>\n

I stressed that the attacks on UNRWA are an assault on the multilateral system and a defiance of international law with reverberations far beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.<\/p>\n

I also stressed that bringing back to a learning environment the more than 600,000 girls and boys currently living in the rubble of Gaza should be our common priority to avoid a lost generation.<\/p>\n

I sought the Holy Father\u2019s support to preserve UNRWA\u2019s critical services, primarily in the area of education, public health and safety nets for Palestine Refugees in Gaza and across the region until a just and fair political solution is in place.<\/p>\n

ENDs-<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

12 January 2026 From Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA Commissioner-General as posted on his official X account (previously known as Twitter)\u00a0 It was an honour to have a private audience with His Holiness Pope Leo XIV. I briefed him on the immense suffering endured by Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as well as on the […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":301,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[3141],"document-category":[6978],"document-source":[1817],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[1945,5449,2033,2441,6650,2005,2533,5200],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[],"class_list":["post-314709","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","country-holy-see","document-category-social-media-post","document-source-united-nations-relief-and-works-agency-for-palestine-refugees-in-the-near-east-unrwa","document-subject-assistance","document-subject-assistance-to-the-palestinian-people","document-subject-children","document-subject-education-and-culture","document-subject-funding-needs","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-health","document-subject-humanitarian-relief","entity-united-nations-system"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/314709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/301"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/314709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314723,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/314709\/revisions\/314723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=314709"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=314709"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=314709"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=314709"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=314709"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=314709"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=314709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}