THE UK Government’s decision to suspend funding for the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees has been criticised by Christian Aid.
The UK’s decision follows allegations that staff of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) were involved in the 7 October attacks against Israel.
On Saturday, a spokesperson for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said that the UK was “temporarily pausing any future funding”. The Government was “appalled” by the allegations, the statement said. It went on, nevertheless: “We remain committed to getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza who desperately need it.”
The UK is one of nine countries that have suspended funding. They include UNRWA’s biggest funders, the United States and Germany.
The chief executive of Christian Aid, Patrick Watt, wrote on social media on Saturday: “Allegations against individuals working for UNRWA, however serious, cannot justify collective punishment of Palestinian people through the withdrawal of aid. The UK govt has got this call badly wrong.”
On Friday, the commissioner-general of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, said that the Israeli authorities had provided the agency with “information about the alleged involvement of several UNRWA employees in the horrific attacks on Israel on 7 October”.
He continued: “To protect the agency’s ability to deliver humanitarian assistance, I have taken the decision to immediately terminate the contracts of these staff members, and launch an investigation in order to establish the truth without delay. Any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution. . .
“Anyone who betrays the fundamental values of the United Nations also betrays those whom we serve in Gaza, across the region, and elsewhere around the world.”
The specific nature of the allegations has not been made clear, but the BBC said that reports in the Israeli media “suggest UNRWA vehicles and facilities may have been used for the attack”.
“UNRWA shares the list of all its staff with host countries every year, including Israel,” Mr Lazzarini said on Saturday. “The agency never received any concerns on specific staff members.
“I urge countries who have suspended their funding to reconsider their decisions before UNRWA is forced to suspend its humanitarian response. The lives of people in Gaza depend on this support, and so does regional stability.”
Gaza represents UNRWA’s largest operation: about 40 per cent of its staff work in the Strip, reaching 13,000 before the outbreak of hostilities. Mr Lazarrini reports that 3000 “core staff” continue to report to work. Since 7 October, 152 have been killed.
On Sunday, the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, said: “While I understand their concerns — I was myself horrified by these accusations — I strongly appeal to the governments that have suspended their contributions to, at least, guarantee the continuity of UNRWA’s operations.
“The abhorrent alleged acts of these staff members must have consequences. But the tens of thousands of men and women who work for UNRWA, many in some of the most dangerous situations for humanitarian workers, should not be penalised. The dire needs of the desperate populations they serve must be met.”
Mr Guterres said that an investigation by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) had been “immediately activated”.
”Of the12 people implicated, nine were immediately identified and terminated by the commissioner-general of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini; one is confirmed dead, and the identity of the two others is being clarified,” he said.
“The secretariat is ready to co-operate with a competent authority able to prosecute the individuals in line with the secretariat’s normal procedures for such cooperation.”
Two million civilians in Gaza depended on aid from UNRWA “for daily survival”, he said, and its current funding would “not allow it to meet all requirements to support them in February”.
Established by the UN General Assembly in 1949 to provide assistance and protection to Palestinian refugees, UNRWA now serves 5.9 million people in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. It operates five main services: education, health, relief and social services, microfinance and infrastructure, and camp improvement. It is one of the UN’s largest programmes, and is unique in delivering services directly to beneficiaries, and is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions.
The majority of UNRWA’s employees are refugees themselves. Before the latest conflict, more than 9000 worked in the agency’s 278 schools in Gaza, educating almost 300,000 children. It was delivering cash and food aid to 1.1 million people — a number that has since risen. Up to 1.9 million internally displaced people are said to be residing in 154 UNRWA shelters or near by.
UNRWA reported last week that at least 340 internally displaced people had now been killed while seeking safety in its shelters, and more than 1100 had been injured. The UN deputy humanitarian co-ordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Thomas White, condemned a “consistent failure to uphold the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law: distinction, proportionality, and precautions in carrying out attacks”.
In October, the agency launched an emergency appeal for £378 million. Its 2023-2028 strategy refers to “chronic underfunding”.
The Israeli government has long raised concerns about UNRWA, and, on Saturday, the Board of Deputies welcomed the UK Government’s decision. “There have been significant worries for decades regarding the activity of UNRWA employees; their incitement of anti-Semitism and their promotion of terror — and for decades UNRWA’s leadership has dismissed such fears,” the Board of Deputies said in a statement. “It is clear that far stronger oversight of this agency is desperately needed.”
On Friday, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to “take immediate and effective measures 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 spokesman for UNRWA, Adnan Abu Hasna, warned that “pushing more Palestinian residents to Rafah city is pushing things towards explosion”. The city is now home to 1.3 million people, compared with 280,000 before the conflict.
On Tuesday, the Foreign Secretary, Lord Cameron, spoke to Arab ambassadors in Westminster hosted by the Conservative Middle East Council, about the importance of recognising a Palestinian state.
“Most important of all is to give the Palestinian people a political horizon so that they can see that there is going to be irreversible progress to a two-state solution and crucially the establishment of a Palestinian state,” he said.
“We have a responsibility there because we should be starting to set out what a Palestinian state would look like, what it would comprise, how it would work and crucially, looking at the issue, that as that happens, we with allies will look at the issue of recognising a Palestinian state, including at the United Nations.”
Paul Vallely, page 15; Letters, page 16