Major donors are pausing funding for the UN agency as the scandal deepens
Germany, Britain and at least four other countries said on Saturday they were suspending funding for the United Nations agency, which provides food, water and essential services to Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. Many of them are said to be on the brink of starvation after 16 weeks of war between Israel and Hamas.
The countries joined the United States, which said Friday it would withhold funding from the group, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), after a dozen of its associates were accused by Israel of taking part in the attacks. October 7.
The United Nations has not made public the details of the allegations against the UNRWA staff, who have been fired, but a senior UN official briefed on the allegations called them “extremely serious and heinous.”
The Israeli military said in a statement on Saturday that its intelligence services had prepared a case “incriminating several UNRWA employees for their alleged involvement in the massacre, along with evidence pointing to the use of UNRWA facilities for terrorist purposes.” What that involvement entailed was not further explained.
In announcing the funding pause, the United States, the agency's largest donor, said it was reviewing the allegations “and the steps the United Nations is taking to address them.”
The governments of Australia, Canada, Finland and Iceland also said they were suspending funding for the agency.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, called the suspension “collective punishment” for Gaza and warned that if funding was not restored it would have a negative impact on the humanitarian aid program.
“It is shocking to see the agency's funds being suspended in response to allegations against a small group of employees,” he said in a statement, “especially given the immediate action UNRWA took in terminating their contracts and asking for a transparent, independent organization. research.”
US intelligence agencies have been aware for months of vague allegations that some of UNRWA's 13,000 employees may have collaborated with Hamas or even may have been involved in the October 7 terror attack. Only this week, U.S. officials said, did the United Nations and Israel share detailed, specific intelligence with the State Department and the White House, including the names of those fired.
U.S. officials said the harsh U.S. statement and action to withhold funding to the aid agency was not the result of any formal assessment of Israel's intelligence services by U.S. spy agencies. Officials said the U.N. aid agency's decision to fire the individuals was proof that the information provided by the Israelis was compelling.
Some donor countries, such as Ireland and Norway, said the agency's work was too important to stop.
Micheál Martin, Ireland's foreign minister, wrote on social media that UNRWA staff had provided life-saving assistance “at incredible personal cost.”
Norway said the allegations against the staffers, if true, were “completely unacceptable” but said the organization was the “main humanitarian organization” in Gaza and, like Ireland, pledged continued support.
“We must distinguish between what individuals may have done and what UNRWA stands for,” the Norwegian delegation to the Palestinian Authority said on social media.
Israel's accusations against the twelve UN employees are the latest episode of decades-long friction between Israel and UNRWA.
Israelis say UNRWA's existence separate from the broader UN refugee protection system prevents Palestinian refugees from establishing roots elsewhere in the Middle East. There have also been frequent clashes between Israel and UNRWA over what the agency's schools teach their students, and over UNRWA's relationship with Hamas.
On Saturday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz welcomed the decisions of the United States and Canada, calling on UNRWA to stop its work in Gaza after the Israeli military campaign there was over.
Israel aims to ensure that “UNRWA will not be part of the war the day after,” Mr. Katz said on social media, referring to the end of the war.
But the suspension of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in funding could not have come at a worse time for Gazans, who face continued bombardment by the Israeli army and a widening humanitarian catastrophe of hunger and disease, complicated by winter circumstances. conditions.
The agency, one of the largest employers in the enclave, has been a crucial lifeline for Palestinians in Gaza for decades. Since the start of the war in Gaza, the country has played an even more crucial role in providing food, water, aid and services.
Nearly 600,000 Palestinian residents of the territory face catastrophic hunger and starvation in Gaza, according to the World Food Program. According to Gaza health authorities, more than 25,000 people have been killed in the area since the war began in October, a toll that does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that troops passed through Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza and which Israel has called a Hamas stronghold, and that it had killed “numerous terrorists in several clashes.” It came the day after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to provide more aid and prevent genocide in the enclave, but declined to call for an end to its campaign.
The ongoing fighting and the cold have worsened the plight of hundreds of thousands of Gazans who were on the run and for whom finding safety was elusive. Israel has ordered civilians sheltering in several densely populated neighborhoods of Khan Younis to flee, and fighting has reached the vicinity of at least two hospitals: Nasser Hospital, a large medical complex, and Al-Amal Hospital, run by the Palestinian Red Crescent. .
On Saturday, Israeli forces bombed the area near Al-Amal for the sixth day in a row, the Red Crescent said. About 7,000 displaced Palestinians are sheltering in hospital, said Nebal Farsakh, a spokeswoman for the Red Crescent.
UN officials are particularly concerned about how they will finance the 150 UNRWA shelters housing some 1.2 million displaced Gazans, the official said, as well as UNRWA's ability to distribute aid. UNRWA is the lead group coordinating the aid trucks that enter Gaza every day with humanitarian aid.
UNRWA has consistently emphasized its neutrality and at times criticized Hamas call militants because they use the facilities to store weapons.
In 2021, UNRWA reappointed its Gaza director, Matthias Schmale, after he was believed to have complimented the “tremendous sophistication” of Israeli attacks on Gaza during a brief war that year. Late last year, the group accused Hamas of “removing fuel and medical equipment from the agency's compound in Gaza City,” before later removing the posts following a backlash.
In 2005, then-head of UNRWA Peter Hansen said it was likely that UNRWA staff included Hamas members and supporters, given the extent of support for Hamas within the broader Gaza population. function.
Yet experts say that amid these tensions, some Israeli security officials privately accept the benefits of UNRWA's existence.
“The view of the Israeli security establishment has long been that UNRWA is ultimately preferable to what they think the alternative would be without UNRWA,” says Anne Irfan, author of a book on UNRWA and Palestinian refugees. “It provides services that would otherwise really fall under the jurisdiction of the occupying power under international law.
Thomas Voller, Victoria KimAnd Gaya Gupta reporting contributed.