UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday urged funding and political support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

"I appeal to you today to provide the funding and political support UNRWA needs to help build peace and stability -- for Palestinians, for Israel and for the region," Guterres said at a ministerial meeting in support of UNRWA.

In his remarks, the UN chief said generations of Palestine refugees have counted on UNRWA for education, health care and other essential services, and before October 2023, it provided schooling for half a million girls and boys across the region. Today, it delivers emergency food and cash assistance for 2.6 million people, and its primary clinics handle 10.5 million visits per year.

Despite all of this, UNRWA is being forced to operate under extreme and rising pressure, with its staff being killed in Gaza, its premises destroyed, and it faces budget shortfalls, Guterres said.

The UN chief urged UN member states to do all they can to support UNRWA by standing in solidarity, providing political support, countering the distortions that threaten one of the only lifelines many Palestine refugees have left, so as to ensure that the agency has the resources to carry out its mandate.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told the meeting that the international community is confronted with the stark consequences of prolonged inaction and impunity: a famine, a looming military occupation in Gaza, emboldened settlers and creeping annexation in the occupied West Bank, and a multilateral system in peril.

He warned that in the absence of a significant influx of new funding, the delivery of critical services to millions of Palestine refugees across the region will be compromised before the end of the year.

"History will forever ask our predecessors why they failed to prevent the genocides perpetrated under their watch," Lazzarini said, urging UN member states to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the unconditional release of hostages. ■