UNRWA said Tuesday it has suspended it program  rehabilitate Gaza, which may be good news for Israel since it says material shipped to Gaza are also being used to rehabilitate terror tunnels.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told President Reuven Rivlin in New York Monday night that the United Nations has sent a team to Gaza to investigate assertions by Israel that metal and cement shipped into Gaza are being used for tunnels as well as homes.

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness told The Jewish Press he is not aware of any money being used for the tunnels, some of which have been identified by the IDF as newly constructed.

The UNRWA program to help Gazans, whose homes were damaged or destroyed by Hamas rockets as well as Israeli fire in last summer’s war, is dependent on pledges of $5.4 billion, including $720 million for UNRWA, made by foreign donors at a conference in Cairo last October..

“The gap between expectations after the October Cairo conference and present reality is widening. There are genuine fears that if UNRWA halts this program, the consequences could be dramatic,” said Gunness.

He added, “All of the money that we can dispense has been spent. There is no more money.” He also stated that no money is missing.

There are two UNRWA aid plans, one for rental subsidies and the other for cash payments for Gazans to buy materials.

The Jewish Press has learned that most of the money that actually was turned over to UNRWA came from Saudi Arabia, followed by the European Union.

The constant threat of violence from Gaza is often fueled by great expectations, and the halt to work for homes in Gazans could stir up the locals again.

And what happened to all of the pledges?

Par for the course, most Arab countries have not lived up to their promises.

For example, Qatar pledged $1 billion.

With the price of oil having caved in since October, perhaps the richest country in the world, which has investments of more than $100 billion, cannot find the shekels for its poor brethren in Gaza.

Qatar’s Sheikh Hamad may need the small change for the maid to clean his home in London, for which he paid $62 million and then spent another $110 million to refurbish, complete with marble bathrooms.

In a move that highlights the contrast between the Ramallah government of Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas and Gaza, the ruling Hamas terror organization decided Sunday it would allow the entry of Israeli products into the enclave.

In Palestinian Authority-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria, where the government is positioned as a “moderate” Arab force, merchants are punished by Abbas if they are found to be carrying Israeli items for sale.

This is also the first time in five years, however, that Hamas has allowed Israeli goods to enter Gaza. The reason is simple survival, economically and politically.

Imad al-Bad, assistant deputy of the Hamas ministry of economy, told the Ma’an news agency that soft drinks, clothes, coffee and other items would be allowed in. “The last war led to the destruction of thousands of factories which affected the production power [in Gaza], and to fill that gap we decided to allow Zionist products in,” he said.

“The war damaged the production ability of factories and the nature and quality of the product because some raw materials are not allowed in” due to the blockade,” he continued. “We decided to allow [the] products to enter so that the market is not hindered and products are available,” al-Baz added.

Israel has resumed its cautious stance on which items can cross the border into Gaza after having discovered during last summer’s war hundreds of kilometers of terror tunnels honeycombing the enclave and leading under the border into Israeli territory.

Despite its concerns, Israel has nevertheless allowed concrete and other construction materials into the region, albeit under “supervision,” for reconstruction purposes. Those materials have already been commandeered, sold or voluntarily offered to Hamas terrorists for the purpose of rebuilding its terror tunnels, an inevitable result Israeli officials had predicted.

The Jewish State was heavily pressured by international leaders into allowing the construction materials into Gaza that were used to build the underground tunnel city network also the first time around. At that time too, it was claimed that Gaza residents “desperately” needed the materials for construction and repair of their homes, schools, hospitals and other essential infrastructure.

Instead, the materials were used to build millions of dollars’ worth of tunnels for carrying out terror attacks against Israelis and kidnapping other captives to hold as hostages in Gaza. The tunnels became part of the Hamas arsenal employed most recently during Operation Protective Edge, but also as far back as 2006, in its unending war against Israel.

A rocket launched on Monday evening from Gaza landed in Gaza.

The explosion was heard in Kibbutz Be’eri, which is close to where the rocket fell short.

Iron Dome did not go off.

In an interview aired on the Lebanese al-Manar news site on Monday, Jan. 19, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah made many of the standard blowhard assertions everyone expects. To wit: Hezbollah has much modern weaponry, Hezbollah’s military prowess and arsenal has increased and continues to increase in strength every year.

Nasrallah also claimed that his fighters are training day and night, that they will be ready to liberate the Galilee, and they will penetrate far into enemy territory “in case of a new Zionist aggression in Lebanon.”

No explanation for why this latest “Zionist aggression” was not the one they’ve been waiting for,  just more threats about the next time.

But in the course of the six minute interview, Nasrallah said something worth noting.

The interviewer asked Nassrallah whether Turkey has relations with either ISIS or the al-Nusra Front.

“It has relations with both of them,” Nasrallah replied.

The terrorist leader also claimed that despite what U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and President Barack Obama “say in the media,” behind the scenes the U.S. administration has revealed in “confidential letters to some regional countries” that it is “not concerned with whether President Assad remains in power or departs.”

Nasrallah said that only Turkey and Saudi Arabia really care about dethroning Assad.

The terrorist leader also said that Hamas is very interested in having close and complete relations with Iran and with Hezbollah.

Egyptian security forces blew up a 3/4-mile long smuggling tunnel reaching into the Northern Sinai from Gaza on Saturday, hours after terrorists bombed an Egyptian train.

The tunnel was similar to those that the IDF uncovered during the Protective Edge counter-terrorist campaign last summer, complete with electricity and telephone lines.

The tunnel opening in Gaza was underneath a smuggler’s house. The tunnels are used to smuggle weapons , food and money for terrorists.

Earlier on Saturday, terrorists derailed an Egyptian train with a bomb explosion. No one was injured.

The U.S. State Dept. has strongly attacked the International Criminal Court (ICC) for opening a probe of alleged Israeli war comes and left open the question whether the ICC even has the a right to conduct a probe of last year’s war with Hamas.

The State Dept. called the ICC announcement a “tragic irony,” a statement that was further bolstered by praise for the ICC decision by Hamas, which may find itself under the ICC microscope.

Jeff Rathke, director of the State Dept. press office, stated:

We strongly disagree with the ICC Prosecutor’s action today. As we have said repeatedly, we do not believe that Palestine is a state and therefore we do not believe that it is eligible to join the ICC. It is a tragic irony that Israel, which has withstood thousands of terrorist rockets fired at its civilians and its neighborhoods, is now being scrutinized by the ICC.

He told reporters at Friday’s daily press briefing:

We don’t think that the Palestinians have established a state, and we don’t think they’re eligible to join the International Criminal Court. I would highlight that many other countries share this view.

In answer to a question whether the ICC is conducting “an illegitimate preliminary examination,” Rathke responded, ” I’m not going to characterize it.,” and he declined to say one way or the other if the United States will appeal to the ICC to drop the preliminary examination.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke with Sec. of State John Kerry Friday and asked him to intervene against the ICC on behalf of Israel

Hamas was thrilled by the ICC decision and declared on Saturday, “We are ready to provide (the court) with thousands of reports and documents that confirm the Zionist enemy has committed horrible crimes against Gaza and against our people.”

“Tragic irony” is an excellent definition of the ICC decision, which is even more astonishing since it apparently follows a complaint by the Palestinian Authority, which will not be a member of the ICC until April 1.

Technically, the ICC is off the hook of overreaching its authority.

The “Rome Statute” concerning war crimes states that non-members cannot ask for an investigation of war crimes.

The ICC got around this restriction by stating it is “examining” whether an investigation should be conducted, and it obviously cannot make a decision until April 1.

But how can the ICC examine alleged war crimes dating back to last year, when the Palestinian Authority did not even apply for ICC membership.

PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas presented documents to the ICC giving it authority to act retroactively.

The ICC stated it will open its examination on alleged Israeli war crimes in last summers’ war with “full independence and impartiality.”

If so, it will have a hard time ignoring Hamas war crimes, which Israel documented day by day in the war, having learned to do so after the United Nations’ scathing Goldstone Report that barely mentioned Hamas’ war crimes in the three-week Operation Cast Lead counter-terrorist campaign in late December 2008 and early January 2009.

Prime Minister Netanyahu said that the ICC announcement of a preliminary examination as based on an “outrageous request” by the Palestinian Authority.

The US Consulate in Jerusalem is training Jerusalem Arabs as armed security guards to escort American diplomats in Judea and Samaria, according to reports in Yediot Achronot and Arutz-7.

The report states that 7 Israeli guards were recently fired and 3 more Israeli guards quit in protest, following the appointment of the Consulate’s new security officer, Dan Cronin, and his new policies.

Cronin is reportedly hiring 35 Arab guards and sending them for training in Jericho and the US.

According to some of the former Israeli guards, a number of the Arab guards already hired have previously been arrested for stone throwing attacks and have relatives with terror records.

The former guards also describe a secret arsenal in the US Consulate, consisting of machine guns, rifles and shotguns — all without permission or coordination with Israel.

On January 4, JewishPress.com reported on an incident where US Consulate security guards allegedly pulled out a gun and an M-16, pointing their weapons at Israelis near the community of Adei Ad. The US denied they pulled out any weapons on Israeli citizens during their surveillance mission.

There has been an inordinate amount of coordination between anti-Israel activist groups and US Consulate officials as of late.

In 2010, it was revealed that the US Consulate in Jerusalem had hired the son of Hamas leader to manage their motor pool. The position gave him access to US Consulate vehicles and visiting VIPs. The employee’s brother was an advisor to a senior Hamas official in Jerusalem.

The former US Consulate employee had been arrested a number of times by Israel, previous to his being hired by the US Consulate in 2003, and was part of an Israeli 2007 investigation into Hamas activities in Jerusalem. The consulate fired him from his sensitive position in 2006 when it couldn’t ignore his Hamas connections.