United Nations – UNRWA
Updated 2024-08-29
2024-08-16 UNRWA Says There Is ‘Nowhere to Go’ as Israel Orders Evacuation of Gaza Safe Zones Following a series of evacuation orders this week, Israeli forces issued another on Friday for areas in central and southern Gaza, including “safe zones,” leaving Palestinian families gripped with fear and with “nowhere to go,” according to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
Israel’s Arabic spokesperson announced on social media that people in six neighborhood blocks in various towns, several of which were part of a proclaimed humanitarian zone, must “immediately move,” leading to a scramble of evacuations in those areas.
“Once again, fear spreads as families have nowhere to go,” UNRWA wrote on social media. “People remain trapped in an endless nightmare of death and destruction on a staggering scale.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-evacuation-unrwa-nowhere-to-go
2024-07-30 Over 200 UNRWA Workers Have Been Killed in Israel’s Genocide The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the primary humanitarian aid provider for Palestinians in Gaza, reported a tragic milestone on Tuesday of Israel killing over 200 UNRWA employees in Gaza in the last 10 months.
According to the agency, Israel has killed 202 UNRWA workers in Gaza since it embarked on its genocidal assault in October, some of them killed while providing desperately-needed humanitarian assistance to Palestinians amid the famine and epidemics caused by Israel’s relentless bombardment. Others were killed while at home with their families or seeking a safe place to shelter. https://truthout.org/articles/over-200-unrwa-workers-have-been-killed-in-israels-genocide/
2024-07-15 Israel Has “Flattened” UNRWA HQ in Gaza in “Blatant” War Crime, Agency Says After months of successive attacks on humanitarian aid facilities, Israeli forces have now “completely destroyed” the headquarters of the primary aid group for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the agency reports.
Israeli forces attacked the facility as they carried out their horrific raid of Gaza City last week, leaving nothing but rubble in its place. The building was one of many operated by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the largest aid group for Palestinians in Gaza and beyond.
UNRWA Commissioner Philippe Lazzarini said that Israel’s attack on the facility represents a “blatant” war crime.https://truthout.org/articles/israel-has-flattened-unrwa-hq-in-gaza-in-blatant-war-crime-agency-says/
2024-05-25 Italy to resume UNRWA funding as Gaza faces humanitarian crisis Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani says most of the $38m in funding will be allocated for food in Gaza. Italy has announced it will restore funding for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) months after it suspended aid to the agency over Israeli allegations linking UN staff to the deadly October 7 attack.
Rome joins several Western donors in resuming aid after an independent review of UNRWA, led by French former foreign minister Catherine Colonna, found that Israel had not provided any evidence to back its claims. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/25/italy-to-resume-unrwa-funding-as-gaza-faces-humanitarian-crisis
2024-05-21 UNRWA says food distribution in Rafah suspended, citing insecurity The UN agency for Palestinian refugees also cited a lack of supplies as Israel continues closure of border crossings. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says that food distribution in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah has been suspended due to a lack of supplies and insecurity in the densely populated city.
UNRWA said in a statement on X on Tuesday that only seven of its 24 health centres were operational and that it had not received any medical supplies in the past 10 days due to “closures/disruptions” at the Rafah and the Karem Abu Salem – known in Israel as Kerem Shalom – crossings into Gaza.https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/21/unrwa-says-food-distribution-in-rafah-suspended-citing-insecurity
2024-04-22 UN Review: No Evidence UNRWA Staff Are Terrorists Today the UN released its “Independent Review on UNRWA Adherence to the Humanitarian Principle of Neutrality“, which “confirms that the Agency has systems to address allegations of neutrality breaches, including through disciplinary sanctions”, according to the press release.
This review was commissioned by the UN Secretary-General on February 5, after the Israeli government claimed that staff members of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the key humanitarian aid organization operating in the Gaza Strip, of participating in “Operation Al Aqsa Flood”, the Hamas-led attack in Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel timed that accusation to coincide with the preliminary measures issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on January 26, which was clearly an attempt to deflect media attention away from the ICJ’s order for Israel to take steps to comply with its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention, ruling that Israel is committing a plausible genocide in Gaza.
The review is separate from an ongoing investigation by the UN Office for Internal Oversight Services into Israel’s allegation that UNRWA employees were involved in the 10/7 attacks. https://www.jeremyrhammond.com/2024/04/22/un-review-no-evidence-unrwa-staff-are-terrorists/?
2024-04-22 ‘Damning’ Independent Probe Finds Israel Has Yet to Provide Evidence Against UNRWA The U.S. House on Saturday passed a bill including a prohibition on funding the agency, due to Israel’s unsubstantiated claims that UNRWA employees have terrorism links.
Countries that have continued to suspend their funding of the United Nations’ top relief agency in the occupied Palestinian territories were left with “no room” to justify their decision, said critics on Monday as an independent investigation into Israel’s allegations against the organization revealed Israeli officials have ignored requests to provide evidence to support their claims.
Nearly three months after U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres commissioned the report, Colonna, the former foreign minister of France, said Israel “has yet to provide supporting evidence” of its allegation that “a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations.”
Colonna’s findings were bolstered by an investigation led by the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Sweden, the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights, which separately sought evidence from Israel.
“Israeli authorities have to date not provided any supporting evidence nor responded to letters from UNRWA in March, and again in April, requesting the names and supporting evidence that would enable UNRWA to open an investigation,” said the Nordic groups. https://www.commondreams.org/news/unrwa-2667835600
The 1,012-page legislation passed in a 286-134 vote, with 112 Republicans and just 22 Democrats opposing the bill. All but one of the bill’s Democratic opponents are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC).
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the CPC, said in a statement after voting against the measure that she is “very concerned that this package continues funding for the Netanyahu government with no conditions, while at the same time prohibiting funding” for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-house-unrwa-israel
2024-03-22 US Pariah Status Grows as Finland Resumes UNRWA Funding As the United States doubled down on banning funds for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, Finland said Friday that it would resume contributions to the lifesaving organization in an implicit rebuke of unsubstantiated Israeli claims—reportedly extracted via torture—that staff members were involved in the October 7 attacks.
UNRWA employees say they were tortured into making false confessions about involvement in Hamas and October 7. The staffers accuse Israeli interrogators of severely beating and waterboarding them, as well as threatening to harm their relatives.
The European Union and nations including Canada, Sweden, Denmark, and Australia subsequently resumed funding for UNRWA, while other contributors including Saudi Arabia increased their donations. https://www.commondreams.org/news/unrwa-funding-2667580373
2024-03-21 ‘Starvation Caucus’: US Lawmakers Push Spending Bill That Bars Funding for UNRWA U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders slammed members of Congress who are “happy to cut funding to UNRWA and make it harder to get aid to Palestinians in the midst of this crisis.”
Buried at the end of 1,012 pages of legislative text unveiled early Thursday is a section that says funds appropriated under the bipartisan bill “may not be used for a contribution, grant, or other payment” to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which Gazans rely on for food and shelter. The U.S. is historically the largest donor to UNRWA.
The proposed freeze would last through March 2025. Many Republican lawmakers are calling for a permanent end to U.S. funding for the agency, which has faced shortfalls since the Biden administration and other Western governments paused donations in late January following Israel’s unsubstantiated claims that UNRWA staffers took part in the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel. https://www.commondreams.org/news/starvation-caucus-unrwa
2024-03-18 US State Department Claims It Hasn’t Seen Reports of Israel Torturing UNRWA Staff Ryan Grim, The Intercept’s Washington, D.C. bureau chief, asked deputy State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel if he believes the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) staff members who say they were tortured by Israeli interrogators into making false confessions about involvement with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which led the October 7 attacks on Israel. Israeli officials claimed that at least 12 out of UNRWA’s 13,000 staff in Gaza had ties to Hamas and October 7.
“When you originally talked about the allegations against the 12 staff, you have said that UNRWA itself was the one who forwarded those allegations alone. You said you found them credible, but since then UNRWA itself has said that its staff were tortured by Israel in order to get some of those confessions extracted,” said Grim. “Does that change your view of the evidence that was presented by Israel, and if UNRWA was credible enough for you believe the allegations the first time, is UNRWA credible enough when they make an allegation of torture against its staff?”
Patel replied, “I’ve not seen that reporting, Ryan,” adding that “we continue to find the allegations that were laid out a number of months ago to be credible.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/unrwa
2024-03-17 Van Hollen Says Netanyahu Spreading ‘Flat Out Lies’ About UNRWA U.S. Senator for Maryland Chris Van Hollen continued his defense of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and its work in Gaza in an appearance on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
“The claim that Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and others are making that somehow UNRWA is a proxy for Hamas are just flat out lies, that’s a flat out lie,” he told journalist Margaret Brennan.
The U.S. was one of many Western countries that paused funding for UNRWA after the agency announced in January that it had fired 12 staffers over Israeli allegations that they had been involved in Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. However, some countries including Canada, Sweden, the European Union, and Australia have since restored funding. A report has also emerged that Israel tortured UNRWA staffers into falsely confessing to involvement in the Hamas attack. https://www.commondreams.org/news/van-hollen-netanyahu-lies-unrwa
2024-03-15 The Democrats’ ‘Aid Package’ Will Accelerate Gaza Genocide But one point can’t be overemphasized: This bill would have a genocidal effect on Palestinians—or, more precisely, it would accelerate the genocide that is already underway. And despite their boasts that it provides “humanitarian aid” to Gaza, the bill permanently cuts off all funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), a group other relief agencies describe as “irreplaceable.” That will result in additional civilian deaths.
That’s not rhetorical overkill. In its present form, the bill would provide Israel with $10 billion in additional weaponry and $4 billion in other military support. Although Democrats coyly describe its Israeli aid as “security assistance,” its real purpose is to reload a massive killing machine. Its passage would give Israel a green light to continue the slaughter. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/democrats-aid-package-gaza-genocide
2024-03-15 Australia Restores UNRWA Funding as Israel Kills Aid Workers, Starving Gazans Australia said Friday that it would reinstate funding for the United Nations United Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in international financing due to unsubstantiated Israeli claims that UNRWA staff participated in the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel.
“The best available current advice from agencies and the Australian government lawyers is that UNRWA is not a terrorist organization,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in Adelaide while announcing a new funding package for the agency, which works to aid Palestinians forcibly displaced during the Nakba, or “catastrophe” through which the modern state of Israel was established in 1948, as well as their descendants.
“The Labor government must publicly pressure Israel to allow aid into all parts of Gaza,” Sen. Mehreen Faruqi of New South Wales and the Australian Greens stressed. “Starvation is a weapon of war, and Israel is blocking aid to reach the people of Gaza in brazen contravention of the [International Court of Justice’s] ruling” ordering Israel to prevent genocidal acts. https://www.commondreams.org/news/australia-unrwa
2024-03-13 IMEU Policy Analysis #10 | UNRWA: Implications of Cutting Off US Funding President Biden cut off funding for UNRWA, an agency which has provided basic services to Palestinian refugees for the past 75 years, based on unproven allegations against a small fraction of UNRWA employees which were extracted under torture.
Several bills introduced in the current Congress contemplate permanently cutting off US appropriations to UNRWA in a bid to undermine Palestinian refugees’ status and right to return home.
Any effort to cut off funding to UNRWA either temporarily or permanently will greatly exacerbate the catastrophic humanitarian conditions faced by Palestinians under Israel’s blockade of Gaza, leading to further deprivation, including starvation and dehydration. https://imeu.org/article/imeu-policy-analysis-10-unrwa-implications-of-cutting-off-us-funding
2024-03-09 Canada, Sweden Restore UNRWA Funds as Report Accuses Israel of Torturing Agency Staff “The work that UNWRA does cannot be overstated,” said Canadian lawmaker Salma Zahid. “It will save lives as we have seen the visuals of children dying of hunger in Gaza. The need for immediate aid is non-negotiable.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/unrwa-funding-2667469058
2024-03-05 UNRWA Chief Accuses Netanyahu of ‘Concerted Campaign’ to Destroy Aid Agency The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees told the U.N. General Assembly on Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies are intentionally trying to decimate the critical aid body as mass starvation looms in the Gaza Strip.
“UNRWA is facing a deliberate and concerted campaign to undermine its operations, and ultimately end them,” said Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s commissioner-general. “Part of this campaign involves inundating donors with misinformation designed to foster distrust and tarnish the reputation of the agency. More blatant, is the Israeli prime minister openly stating that UNRWA will not be part of post-war Gaza.”
“The implementation of this plan is already underway with the destruction of our infrastructure across the Gaza Strip,” he continued. “Attempts to evict UNRWA from its headquarters in East Jerusalem, and from a nearby vocational training center for Palestine refugee youth, are underway. Draft legislation in the Israeli Knesset seeks to prohibit outright any activity by UNRWA on Israeli territory.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/unrwa-chief-netanyahu
2024-03-04 Biden’s Middle East Policy Trades Humanitarian Aid for Endless Warfare On February 13, the U.S. Senate passed a $95.3 billion supplemental funding package that will fund weapons, war, and militarism in Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel. The bill would also further entrench the Biden Administration’s cruel and unnecessary decision to cut all funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) by prohibiting humanitarian funds from going to the agency. UNRWA serves almost six million Palestinian refugees and is the main provider of aid in Gaza. Further restrictions on funding could result in a complete collapse of the already restricted humanitarian response and many more preventable deaths.
It is important to place Biden’s actions in a historical context. Weakening and dismantling UNRWA has been a long-standing strategy by successive Israeli administrations. In 2018, the Trump administration cut all funding to UNRWA, brandishing it as “irredeemably flawed,” just a year after Netenyahu had told Nikki Haley, then U.S. Ambassador to the U.N, that UNRWA should be dismantled.https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/unrwa-israel-gaza
Rather than following their bosses in Congress or agreeing to the administration’s aid suspension, staffers are organising a fundraiser next week in DC to help raise money for humanitarian assistance in Gaza, as well as for organisations working to free the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza. “We feel like we have a responsibility to do more when you see our members and our president and the administration refusing to do so,” an organiser with Congressional Staff for Ceasefire Now said in a phone interview with MEE.
The fundraiser will take place next Thursday. Organisers also plan to create a GoFundMe page and open up their fundraising efforts to the public. “While we’re obviously not going to be able to raise the millions of dollars, or the billions of dollars, that Congress could appropriate for this aid, we can certainly do our part and make our splash.” https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/war-gaza-after-cuts-unrwa-congressional-staffers-organise-gaza-fundraiser
2024-02-06 ‘Scandal’: Israeli Dossier ‘Provides No Evidence’ for Claims Against UNRWA Staff An Israeli dossier that more than a dozen countries have cited to justify cutting off funding to the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency “provides no evidence” that a small number of the key U.N. aid body’s employees were involved in the October 7 Hamas-led attack, according to an investigation released Monday by the British outlet Channel 4.
The dossier merely states that “from intelligence information, documents, and identity cards seized during the course of the fighting, it is now possible to flag around 190 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist operatives who serve as UNRWA employees.”
“More than 10 UNRWA staffers took part in the events of [October 7],” reads the six-page dossier, which Israel provided to UNRWA donor countries—including the agency’s top contributor, the United States—shortly after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) handed down an interim decision ordering Israel to take concrete steps to prevent genocide in the Gaza Strip. https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-dossier-unrwa
2024-02-05 Senate Deal Would Block All Funding to UNRWA as Gazans Starve As the United Nations warned Monday that at least a quarter of civilians in Gaza are suffering from “catastrophic” food insecurity and the collapse of the healthcare system is causing disease to spread, the U.S. Senate doubled down on cutting funding for the U.N.’s top humanitarian agency serving Palestinians by including in a bipartisan package a provision that would block aid for the body. The proposed $118 billion Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, chiefly negotiated by Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), and James Lankford (R-Okla.) includes $14.1 billion for Israel, which has killed at least 27,468 Palestinians in Gaza and at least 360 in the West Bank since beginning its assault on the occupied territories in October.
But a provision notes that none of the $10 billion in humanitarian assistance for Palestinians and Ukrainians “may be made available for a contribution, grant, or other payment” to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Just after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said in an interim ruling late last month that South Africa’s claim that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza is “plausible,” Israel announced it had discovered that 12 of the agency’s 13,000 employees in Palestine had been involved in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7.https://www.commondreams.org/news/senate-deal-unrwa
2024-02-02 A New Phase for Gaza: The War on Humanitarian Aid Israel’s systematic destruction of essential infrastructure has left the people of Gaza largely without food, clean water, and shelter. There is no functional health system. Famine and disease are spreading rapidly among the nearly two million Palestinians displaced from their homes, forced to bear the brunt of winter in densely packed camps. Even if and when the guns go silent, the future for Gaza is devastatingly dark: Israel has also demolished universities, mosques, churches, government buildings, libraries, bakeries, and countless other institutions.
Now, the political fight over humanitarian aid represents a new front in Israel’s war on Palestine.
Last week, the U.S. and at least eight other nations suspended funding to UNRWA, the U.N. agency that serves as the principal aid distributor and shelter provider amid the Israeli-engineered humanitarian crisis. The timing of the decision was unconscionable, coming the day after the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the U.N.’s highest court, issued preliminary measures against Israel requiring that it cease any violations of the Genocide Convention, and ordered Israel to “enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” A hollowed-out UNRWA will make that task impossible. By many accounts, the defunding of the U.N. agency represents an act of collective punishment against the Palestinian people.
UNRWA has provided Palestinians with essential humanitarian assistance since 1949, when the U.N. General Assembly tasked it with supporting a refugee population of 700,000 who were expelled by Israeli forces. Those numbers now exceed five million. https://prospect.org/world/2024-02-02-new-phase-gaza-war-on-humanitarian-aid/
2024-02-02 ‘We Will Shut down by End of February’ – UNRWA Warns against Suspension of Funding The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has warned that it would “most likely” be forced to shut down its operations in the besieged Gaza Strip as well as across the region by the end of February if funding remains suspended.
Several Western countries, including the US, Canada, and France have suspended funding worth $440 million to the UN relief agency after Israel alleged some of its employees were involved in the October 7 operation carried out by the Palestinian Resistance. UNRWA terminated the contracts of the staff members concerned, asking for an independent investigation.
UNRWA is the largest humanitarian organization in Gaza. Of its 13,000 staff, more than 3,000 continue working, they are the backbone of the humanitarian aid operations, the statement said. “As the war in Gaza is being pursued unabated, and at the time the International Court of Justice calls for more humanitarian assistance, it is the time to reinforce and not to weaken UNRWA,” said UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini. “The Agency remains the largest aid organization in one of the most severe and complex humanitarian crises in the world,” he stressed.
Lazzarini further said, “I echo the call of the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to resume funding to UNRWA. If the funding remains suspended, we will most likely be forced to shut down our operations by end of February not only in Gaza but also across the region.” The colossal humanitarian needs of over 2 million people in Gaza now face the risk of deepening following the decision of 16 donor countries to stop financial support to UNRWA, the statement said. https://www.palestinechronicle.com/we-will-shut-down-by-end-of-february-unrwa-warns-against-suspension-of-funding/
2024-01-31 Defunding UNRWA aimed at starving Palestinians to death and completing Israel’s plans for ethnic cleansing The US immediately suspended all funding to UNRWA. Washington was followed by 10 other states, including Germany, the UK and France. Some 21 international aid agencies, including Save the Children, ActionAid, Oxfam and the Danish Refugee Council, wrote that they were “deeply concerned and outraged” at the decision taken “amid a rapidly worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.” Without blinking an eye, Israel and its allies have now signed a death warrant for tens of thousands more.
Death by starvation is the clear intent of Israel and all of its backers, no matter what cynical statements to the contrary they may occasionally make. All of the imperialist powers have unwaveringly defended Israel’s supposed “right to defend itself,” as its armed forces slaughtered around 30,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, wounded 65,000 others, razed more than half Gaza’s essential infrastructure to the ground and left 1.9 million people (85 percent of its population) internally displaced. https://countercurrents.org/2024/01/defunding-unrwa-aimed-at-starving-palestinians-to-death-and-completing-israels-plans-for-ethnic-cleansing/
2024-01-31 By Hurting UN Agency, the West Sides With Genocide Israel has long plotted the downfall of UNRWA, aware that it is one of the biggest obstacles to eradicating the Palestinians as a people, writes Jonathan Cook.
There is an important background to the decision by the United States and other leading Western states, the U.K. among them, to freeze funding to the United Nations’ Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the main channel by which the U.N. disseminates food and welfare services to the most desperate and destitute Palestinians. The World Court judges quoted at length U.N. officials who warned that Israel’s actions had left almost all of the enclave’s 2.3 million inhabitants on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe, including famine.
The funding cut — which has been also adopted by Germany, France, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Netherlands, Italy, Australia and Finland — was imposed even though the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on Friday that Israel may be committing genocide in Gaza.
The West’s flimsy pretext for what amounts to a war on UNRWA is that Israel claims 12 local U.N. staff — out of 13,000 — are implicated in Hamas’ break-out from the open-air prison of Gaza on Oct. 7. The sole evidence appears to be coerced confessions, likely extracted through torture, from Palestinian fighters captured by Israel that day. https://consortiumnews.com/2024/01/31/by-hurting-un-agency-the-west-sides-with-genocide/
2024-01-30 Amnesty Says Cutting Off Aid to UNRWA While Arming Israel Is ‘Stark’ Hypocrisy Amnesty International on Monday joined the growing global chorus denouncing Israel’s allies for suspending aid to the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency even as they continue to support the Israeli military’s war on the Gaza Strip, risking complicity in genocide.
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general and the former U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, said that while Israel’s claim that a dozen staffers at the refugee agency played a role Hamas’ October 7 attack is “serious and must be independently investigated,” the “alleged actions of a few individuals must not be used as a pretext for cutting off lifesaving assistance in what could amount to collective punishment.”
“Some of the very governments that announced they will cut off funds to UNRWA over these allegations have, in the meantime, continued to arm Israeli forces despite overwhelming evidence that these arms are used to commit war crimes and serious human rights violations,” said Callamard. “Rushing to freeze funds for humanitarian aid, based on allegations that are still being investigated, while refusing to even consider suspending support for the Israeli military is a stark example of double standards.” “Instead of suspending vital funding to those in need,” Callamard added, “states should be working to halt arms transfers to Israel and Palestinian armed groups and pushing for an immediate and sustained cease-fire and full humanitarian access to help alleviate devastating suffering.”
The United States announced last week that it would temporarily cut off UNRWA funding as it reviews Israel’s allegations against the low-level agency employees—a decision that came just hours after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel must ensure the provision of humanitarian aid to Gazans, tens of thousands of whom have been killed or wounded by Israeli bombs and shells in less than four months. Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, said that “defunding UNRWA at this critical time overtly defies” the ICJ’s ruling. https://www.commondreams.org/news/amnesty-unrwa-gaza
2024-01-29 20+ NGOs Condemn ‘Reckless’ Decision to Cut Off UNRWA Aid More than 20 humanitarian aid organizations on Monday condemned the decision by the United States and a growing list of nations to suspend funding for the United Nations agency that provides vital services to Palestinians suffering through a genocidal Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.
Following Israeli claims—reportedly extracted from Palestinian prisoners in an interrogation regime rife with torture and abuse—that 12 of the more than 13,000 United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) workers in Gaza were involved in the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, the United States and nine other nations cut off funding to the largest humanitarian aid organization operating in the besieged coastal enclave.
UNRWA has fired several employees in the wake of the Israeli allegations, while the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services, the world body’s highest investigative authority, has launched a probe of the matter. “We welcome UNRWA’s swift investigation into the alleged involvement of a small number of U.N. staff members in the October 7 attacks. We are shocked by the reckless decision to cut a lifeline for an entire population by some of the very countries that had called for aid in Gaza to be stepped up and for humanitarians to be protected while doing their job,” the 21 NGOs said in a statement.
According to UNRWA chief Phillipe Lazzarini, more than 2 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people depend upon UNRWA for their “sheer survival.” With more than 90% of Gazans displaced by Israel’s bombardment and invasion, over 1 million Palestinians are living in UNRWA-run shelters. As Gaza teeters on the brink of famine and hundreds of thousands of its residents suffer infectious diseases, the agency is providing critical food, medicine, and healthcare. It also runs hundreds of schools in the strip. All this while working under relentless Israeli bombardment that’s sometimes targeted UNRWA convoys, schools, shelters, and other facilities. The agency says at least 152 of its employees have been killed by Israeli bombs and bullets since October 7. Overall, more than 26,600 Palestinians have been killed and over 65,300 others wounded during Israel’s 115-day onslaught, according to Gaza officials. Most of these casualties have been women and children. https://www.commondreams.org/news/unrwa-funding-2667115244
The U.S. State Department announced last week that it would temporarily pause any additional funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East as it reviews Israel’s allegations that a dozen of the agency’s employees were involved in Hamas’ October 7 attack on southern Israel. Several countries have followed the U.S. in suspending aid to the UNRWA, including Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Japan, putting the agency’s critical operations in Gaza at risk of total collapse.
Observers noted that the U.S. and other Israel allies were quick to suspend aid to the UNRWA but have refused to cut off military assistance to the Israeli government despite the overwhelming evidence that it is committing war crimes in Gaza. https://www.commondreams.org/news/ocasio-cortez-unrwa
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