Donors are rallying behind UNRWA, while the UN is trying to restore trust
After days of sharp criticism of the UN agency charged with assisting Palestinian civilians, donor countries said on Wednesday they would continue to support the organization under the right circumstances and emphasized its essential role in delivering life-saving aid as widespread famine and disease loom in war. devastated Gaza Strip.
At least 12 countries, including the United States and Germany, the two largest donors, temporarily suspended funding after the Israeli government spread accusations that operatives of the group known as UNRWA took part in the October 7 attacks.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, emphasized on Wednesday that the funding pause for the agency was temporary and praised the agency's work, comments that suggested there may be a willingness among donors to address the funding crisis to solve.
“We know that this agency is providing life-saving services under incredibly challenging conditions in Gaza and contributing to regional stability and security,” Ms Thomas-Greenfield said at a UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday afternoon.
“For this reason, and in the interests of millions of Palestinian citizens who rely on UNRWA's services, it is critical that the UN takes swift and decisive action to hold to account all those who commit atrocities and to strengthen oversight of UNRWA operations and begin restoring human rights. donor confidence.”
Based on telephone conversations, Israel accused 12 UN employees of taking part in the October 7 attacks, in which one allegedly kidnapped a woman and another took part in the massacre at a kibbutz where 97 people were killed. Nine of the 12 employees have been fired, the agency said, and two are dead.
The Israeli government views UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, as a front for Hamas and has been calling for its abandonment for years. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed that position on Wednesday: “The time has come when the international community and the UN itself must understand that UNRWA's mission must end,” he said in a video on social media. “UNRWA is self-perpetuating. It seeks to perpetuate the issue of Palestinian refugees.”
Still, some military leaders say they fear that, without UNRWA, responsibility for distributing aid in Gaza would likely fall to the Israeli government, although Mr. Netanyahu suggested other U.N. agencies and aid groups could take over the job.
As diplomats pushed for an extended pause in fighting in Gaza on Friday, the Israeli army battled Hamas militants in the north and south of the territory, where Israeli forces say many Hamas militants are in tunnels. The military confirmed Tuesday that it is pumping seawater into the underground network to flush out militants, a tactic that many experts doubt will work and could damage sensitive infrastructure.
An American-led ceasefire initiative is being studied by both Hamas and Israel this week.
“The proposal on the table is strong and compelling,” Ms Thomas-Greenfield said on Wednesday. “It provides a much longer humanitarian pause than we saw in November and would allow us to get the hostages out and more life-saving food and water into Gaza.” A week-long lull in fighting in November provided an opportunity for humanitarian aid to Gaza and included an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
The United Nations has said the suspension of funding from major donors could jeopardize UNRWA's work within weeks. Martin Griffiths, the UN's top humanitarian official, told the Security Council meeting on Wednesday that its operations in Gaza were “entirely dependent on the adequate financing and operational functioning of UNRWA.”
Withholding funding for the “alleged actions of a few individuals,” he said, was a “matter of extraordinary disproportionality.”
The U.N. said last week it had launched an investigation into UNRWA and that it would take at least four weeks, according to two diplomats familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters . The UN Secretary General António Guterres conveyed that message to donor countries in New York this week, one of the diplomats said.
That time frame would be faster than normal. Investigations conducted by the UN's top audit body, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, typically last many months and include interviews with staff members, site visits and a forensic examination of UN-issued computers, phones and other equipment, Vladimir Dzuro said, a former senior researcher in the office.
UN agencies including UNICEF, the World Food Program and the World Health Organization warned in a joint statement this week that any pause in UNRWA funding would have “catastrophic consequences for the people of Gaza.” For weeks, U.N. leaders have warned that ordinary people trapped in the war zone face hunger and widespread disease.
“Withdrawing funds from UNRWA is dangerous and would result in the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza,” the statement said.
Donor countries have made individual decisions to suspend aid to UNRWA, and it is not clear whether they would act jointly in response to the UN investigation.
A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry, Sebastian Fischer, said this week that the government would wait to see what the investigation reveals before making a decision. Still, Mr. Fischer said, the investigation is important because UNRWA's work is so important. “We will not abandon the Palestinian civilian population,” he told reporters.
A State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, did not say Tuesday when the U.S. government might make a decision on resuming funding for the agency. But he downplayed the immediate significance of the suspension, saying the State Department had already transferred all but $300,000 of the approximately $121 million budgeted for UNRWA.
The European Union, which has pledged $114 million to UNRWA in 2022, has not suspended funding, and its top diplomat, Josep Borrell Fontelles, said on Wednesday it was crucial to “irreplaceable role.”
Norway, a donor that has also not suspended aid, will try to convince other donors to consider the broader implications of a cut to UNRWA, the country's Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said.
He said it was worrying that for some donor countries, allegations of wrongdoing by a dozen of the agency's staff had become a reason to suspend funding. This approach “in a sense amounts to a collective punishment of millions of Palestinians,” he said.
His argument echoed the views of some aid agency officials, who have noted that donors have historically maintained funding for U.N. missions and agencies even when investigations found staff members had committed serious crimes.