UN Urges Countries to Reverse Funding Pause for Refugee Agency
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – UN officials and aid groups called for countries to reconsider their decision to pause funding for the UN refugee agency for Palestinians on Sunday, warning that its life-saving aid for some two million people in Gaza was in jeopardy.
At least nine countries, including top donors the United States and Germany, have paused funding for the UN refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) following allegations by Israel that some of its staff were involved in the Oct. 7 Al-Aqsa Storm operation.
"While I understand their concerns... I strongly appeal to the governments that have suspended their contributions to, at least, guarantee the continuity of UNRWA's operations," UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Sunday.
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA commissioner-general, also urged countries to "reconsider their decisions before UNRWA is forced to suspend its humanitarian response."
More than 26,000 people have been killed in Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, the enclave's health ministry said. With flows of aid like food and medicine into the territory just a trickle of pre-conflict levels, deaths from preventable diseases as well as the risk of famine are growing, aid officials say, according to Reuters.
Since Oct. 7, most of Gaza's 2.3 million people have become reliant on the aid UNRWA provides, including about one million who have fled Israeli bombardments sheltering in its facilities. Palestinians expressed anger at the funding cuts.
"We used to say Israel was launching a war of famine against us in parallel to its war of destruction, now those countries who suspended the aid to UNRWA declared themselves partners in this war, and collective punishment," said Yamen Hamad, who lives at an UNRWA-run school in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza Strip, after fleeing northern Gaza.
A UN appointed expert on the right to food Michael Fakhri warned on social media platform X that the funding cuts meant that famine was now "inevitable" in Gaza.
The Israeli regime's foreign minister, Israel Katz, on Saturday called for the agency to be replaced and urged for more countries to cut funding. Israel has not yet publicly given details of UNRWA staff members' alleged involvement in the October 7 operation.
Deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq declined to respond directly to Katz's remarks but said UNRWA overall had a strong record.
There was no immediate sign of countries' heeding the UN call to reinstate aid. However, Norway and Ireland said they would continue funding the agency.
UNRWA was set up to help refugees of the 1948 Nakbah and provides education, health and aid services to Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.
