Israel has been trying for years to dismantle UNRWA, which helps Palestinian refugees in Gaza and elsewhere.
The UN chief has led an internationally supported effort to support his agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), but has yet to convince his biggest Western donors.
The United States and the United Kingdom, key allies of Israel, continue to financially block the main organization providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and elsewhere.
Fourteen of the 16 donor countries have resumed funding after suspending it in January when Israel accused members of the organization of taking part in the October 7 Hamas attacks that killed more than 1,100 people in southern Israel.
The United States was UNRWA’s largest donor, but Congress banned all payments to the agency until March 25, 2025.
An independent investigation in April concluded that Israel had failed to present credible evidence to support its allegations. A separate investigation into the October attack is underway by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a donor conference in New York on Friday that UNRWA faces “a deep funding gap” and that without financial support for the organization, “Palestinian refugees would lose a vital lifeline and the last glimmer of hope for a better future.”
“I want to be clear: there is no alternative to UNRWA,” he said, also warning that Israeli evacuation orders force Palestinians “to move like human pinballs in a landscape of destruction and death.”
Without the necessary support and funding @UNRWAPalestinian refugees will lose a vital lifeline and the last glimmer of hope for a better future.
My call to the international community: protect UNRWA, its mandate and its funding.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) July 13, 2024
UNRWA Executive Director Philippe Lazzarini thanked the 118 countries that signed a joint commitment to sustain and strengthen financial and political support for the agency as it “suffers unprecedented attacks and systematic attempts to dismantle it.”
Mr Lazzarini said he hoped the UK, which elected a new Labour government last week, would soon resume its financial support. He said the organisation had already secured funding from donor countries until September, but the total amount of pledges would not be known until next week.
According to Lazzarini, there are now 600,000 “Palestinian girls and boys of primary and secondary school age living in the rubble, deeply traumatized” who need UNRWA’s help to resume their education.
The initiative to support the organization within the UN was launched by Slovenia, Jordan and Kuwait and was signed by all 15 members of the UN Security Council.
“We must put an end to the refugee issue”
Hassan Barari, a professor of international affairs at Qatar University, told Tel Aviv Tribune that Israel has been trying for years to withdraw funding from UNRWA because it believes the organisation has been effective in helping Palestinian refugees.
“They think that if they cut funding to UNRWA, the Palestinians will remain in their own societies and will be forgotten in the years to come,” he said. “This is a continuation of the Israeli attempt to cut funding to UNRWA in order to exclude the refugee issue from any future negotiations.”
Lex Takkenberg, former head of UNRWA’s ethics office, told Tel Aviv Tribune that the agency is the only international body with a comprehensive neutrality framework that includes staff training, financial controls and inspections of its facilities.
“You can never rule out abuses, like in any other organization, but the agency does an incredible job of providing support to Palestinians in the most difficult circumstances,” he said, adding that the agency did everything it could to operate according to humanitarian principles.
According to Takkenberg, Israel has not presented credible evidence to support its claims that UNRWA personnel participated in the October 7 attacks. Rather, these claims have served to normalize raids on UNRWA and its facilities, which have become “an integral part of the assault on Gaza,” he said.