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By Sardar Khan Niazi
The United Nations is urging all donor countries to ensure they meet the dire needs of millions of Palestinians who rely on the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, not only in Gaza but also in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed countless Palestinians, most of them women and minors. Despite the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in the besieged territory, the UN aid agency for Palestinians faced more funding cuts.
Some Western countries froze vital funds for UNRWA amid accusations that 12 of its roughly 13,000 employees in Gaza were involved in the last October 7 attack that sparked the war.
Top UN officials have warned that the withdrawal of funding for its main aid agency in Gaza could lead to the collapse of the humanitarian system. They spoke out after the US, UK, and other countries halted funding over the alleged role of some UN staff in the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel.
The UN sacked several of its staff over the allegations. It said an investigation into its agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, is underway.
A UNRWA spokesperson has said that if funding is not resumed the agency will not be able to continue its operations beyond the end of February.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said a full independent investigation into UNRWA is underway. However, we must not prevent an entire organization from delivering on its mandate to serve people in desperate need.
Withdrawing funds from UNRWA would result in the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza. It will have far-reaching humanitarian and human rights consequences in the occupied Palestinian territory and across the region. The world cannot abandon the people of Gaza.
In addition, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Gaza said no other organization could replace UNRWA due to the agency’s knowledge of the population in Gaza. There is no other humanitarian player in Gaza who can provide food, water, and medicine at the scale that UNRWA does.
Other countries that have halted funding, include Britain, Italy, Finland, Germany, Sweden, and Japan. Guterres met representatives of more than 30 donor states and urged those who have withdrawn funding to reconsider.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said such decisions shocked him as famine looms in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Palestinians in Gaza did not need this additional collective punishment. These stain all of us.
The agency, which has 13,000 employees in Gaza, most of them Palestinians, is the main organization aiding Gaza’s population amid the humanitarian disaster. Over two million of the territory’s 2.3 million people depend on it for sheer survival including food and shelter, Lazzarini said, warning this lifeline can collapse any time now.
The Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians, destroyed vast swaths of Gaza, and displaced nearly 85% of the territory’s 2.3 million people. The Hamas attack in southern Israel killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages.
More than 1 million people have crammed into Rafah and the surrounding areas after Israel ordered civilians to seek refuge there. Designated evacuation areas have repeatedly come under airstrikes.
This is our life. We have nothing and we left our homes with nothing, says Bassam Bolbol, whose family ended up in Muwasi after leaving Khan Younis and finding no shelter in Rafah.
Israel’s military is under increasing scrutiny now that the top United Nations court has asked Israel for a compliance report in a month.
The ruling of the court is binding but stopped short of ordering a ceasefire however, its orders were in part a rebuke of Israel’s conduct in its nearly 4-month war against Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
