UNRWA warns that it will have to stop operations at the end of the month if it does not recover funding

The UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) warned this Thursday that it will be forced to suspend its operations in Gaza and throughout the Middle East at the end of the month if funding to the organization is not resumed, after 16 donor countries froze their financial contributions.

“If financing remains suspended we will most likely be forced to close our operations at the end of February, not only in Gaza but also in the entire region,” UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement, calling on countries to resume financial support to the agency.

The note regretted that 16 donor countries have suspended financing to the
UNRWA after Israeli authorities accused a dozen members of the UN agency of participating in the attacks by the Islamist group Hamas against Israel on October 7.

Following these accusations, of which the Israeli Government has not provided written evidence to the UN, UNRWA dismissed the accused members and launched an investigation that could produce results within two to three weeks.

Several countries, including the US, Japan, Germany and France, have suspended funding worth some $440 million, lamented the United Nations agency, which recalled “the colossal humanitarian needs of more than 2 million people in Gaza”.

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“As the war in Gaza continues unabated and as the International Court of Justice calls for more humanitarian assistance, it is time to strengthen, not weaken, UNRWA.

The Agency remains the largest aid organization in one of the most serious and complex humanitarian crises in the world,” Lazzarini insisted.

UNRWA recalled that tens of thousands of people have been forced to move further south of the Strip in the last week, adding to the more than 1.4 million people who are overcrowded in Rafah, on the border with Egypt, where the majority live in “improvised structures” or directly outdoors.

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In the entire Palestinian enclave almost two million people depend on the
UNRWA to survive, as the agency manages overflowing shelters, provides food assistance and primary health care, among others.

In addition to the Gaza Strip, the organization provides assistance to the millions of Palestinian refugees in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for his part, assured United Nations ambassadors this Wednesday that the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) “must end.”

“The time has come for the international community and the UN itself to understand that UNRWA's mission must end,” Netanyahu said during a meeting in his Jerusalem office with a delegation of ambassadors to the United Nations from eight countries, including Ukraine. , Hungary, Malta, Bulgaria and Slovenia.

The Islamist group “Hamas has infiltrated the ranks of UNRWA. The organization works at the service of Hamas, in its schools and elsewhere. UNRWA seeks to preserve the issue of Palestinian refugees,” said the prime minister, advocating for “replacing” the agency with another, whether UN or not.

(Also: Aid cuts to UNRWA leave millions of Palestinian refugees in uncertainty)

According to Netanyuahu, the UN “is not a leading organization when it comes to Israel, as it is often incredibly biased.”

For his part, Israel's ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said that “any country that continues to fund UNRWA before a thorough investigation of the organization must know that its money will be used for terrorism.”

Meanwhile, the Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, and the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, estimated that UNRWA is “irreplaceable” as a humanitarian response in the devastated Gaza Strip.

EFE