UNRWA funding suspension aims to liquidate agency, says Arab League

The Arab League warned on Sunday of the grave consequences of major donor states suspending their funding of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Anadolu has reported. Millions of Palestinian refugees will be affected by the lack of adequate funds, said the Cairo-based organisation.

“This campaign is not new and aims to liquidate the work of the agency, which serves millions of Palestinian refugees,” explained Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit. The suspension of funding for UNRWA amid Israel’s deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip “means leaving Palestinian civilians to starvation and displacement, and implementing the Israeli plan to eliminate their cause once and for all.”

Several Western countries, notably the US, UK, Italy, Australia and Canada, have suspended funding for the UN agency following claims by Israel on Friday that twelve agency staffers were involved in the Hamas attack on 7 October. The agency employs a total of 30,000 people, and Israel’s allegation has not been proven. Nevertheless, UNRWA said that it has terminated the contracts of several employees following the allegation.

“The campaign [against UNRWA] aims to push the international community to abandon its responsibilities in providing relief to Palestinian refugees, and to place the entire burden on countries sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, especially the Arab countries,” added Aboul Gheit.

Aboul Gheit noted that UNRWA was established by a UN resolution in 1949, and the responsibility for providing aid for the Palestinian refugees falls on the international community and donor countries, until a just solution to their issue is found.

Since the start of the Gaza war, Israel has accused UNRWA employees of working for Hamas, in what was considered as “justification” for attacking the organisation’s schools and facilities in the Strip, which houses tens of thousands of displaced people. Indeed, Israel has repeatedly equated UNRWA staff with Hamas members in efforts to discredit them, providing no proof of the claims, while lobbying hard to have UNRWA closed as it is the only UN agency to have a specific mandate to look after the basic needs of Palestinian refugees.

If the agency no longer exists, argues Israel, then the refugee issue must no longer exist, and the legitimate right for Palestinian refugees to return to their land will be unnecessary. Israel has denied that right of return since the late 1940s, even though its own membership of the UN was made conditional upon Palestinian refugees being allowed to return to their homes and land.

The Israeli allegation came as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Friday declared that South Africa’s claim that Israel is committing genocide is plausible. The court issued an interim order urging Israel to stop obstructing aid deliveries into Gaza and to improve the humanitarian situation.

Flouting the ICJ’s provisional ruling, Israel has continued its onslaught on the Gaza Strip where at least 26,422 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and 65,087 others have been wounded since 7 October. According to Israel, 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas incursion, although Israeli helicopters and tanks are believed to have killed “hundreds” of those claimed to be have been killed by Hamas.

The Israeli offensive has left 85 per cent of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60 per cent of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

On Sunday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry expressed its concern about some countries stopping their donations to UNRWA.

READ: Scotland, Ireland to continue funding UNRWA