UNRWA’s funding crisis compounds Gaza’s problems amid governance vacuum

With a massive funding shortfall following donor suspensions, UNRWA’s postwar fate hangs in the balance. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 20 March 2024
Follow

UNRWA’s funding crisis compounds Gaza’s problems amid governance vacuum

  • Saudi Arabia’s KSrelief raised $170 million for the UN agency after the US and other donors suspended funding
  • Funds crunch threatens assistance to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, West Bank, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon

LONDON: Hopes are fading fast for the restoration of funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, which provides assistance to Palestinian refugees in Gaza and across the region, after reports that the suspension of US donations could be made permanent.

Fourteen donors, including Germany, the UK, and the US, paused funding a little over a month ago after it emerged that UNRWA had launched an internal investigation into allegations that 12 of its staff had participated in the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7.

The US alone provided UNRWA with $343 million in 2023. Seeking to address the massive shortfall left by the suspension, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center, KSrelief, collected almost $170 million in charitable donations.




Support for the continued suspension is not universal, however. Canada, the European Commission and Sweden have all announced that they will resume assistance. (AFP)

However, Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, KSrelief’s supervisor general, said that the only way to get the agency back on its feet was to lift the suspensions, telling a UAE daily he hoped “global funders will revisit their stance.”

Gershon Baskin, Middle East director for International Communities Organization, agrees with the view that a restoration of funding is essential to UNRWA’s survival, adding that diplomatic efforts to push “particularly the US” to revisit its position were understandable.

Support for the continued suspension is not universal, however. Canada, the European Commission and Sweden have all announced that they will resume assistance.

INNUMBERS

• 5 Territories where UNRWA works (Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan).

• $343m American funding for UNRWA in 2023.

• $170m Money collected by KSrelief to fill UNRWA funding gap.

Riham Jafari, advocacy coordinator for Action Aid’s occupied Palestinian territories office, said that these announcements, together with the efforts coming from Riyadh, were “very important.”

“These developments will allow UNRWA to continue its humanitarian and development work and respond to the increasing humanitarian needs of Gaza residents resulting from continuous war against Gaza,” Jafari told Arab News.




Israel alleged that 12 UNRWA staff participated in the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7.  (AFP)

“Politically, this means that supporting UNRWA is part of supporting stability in the region and supporting international justice, as UNRWA is responsible for serving millions of refugees. It is part of supporting regional peace.”

However, despite the $170 million raised by KSrelief and the resumption of funding from Canada, Sweden and the EC, Jafari said that it is unlikely this will be enough to make up the remaining shortfall.

To make matters worse, the fallout from the funding suspension seems to have had ripple effects across the wider humanitarian aid sector, with organizations expressing concern over the perception that no aid is getting into the besieged enclave at all.

A spokesperson for the UK-headquartered charity Muslim Hands told Arab News that this perception was both a “concerning and untrue” development.

“It has also led to a reduction in the contributions being received, something we are keen to redress,” the spokesperson said. “Not only is the aid we are sending getting to those in need in the Gaza Strip, we have live trackers that allow those who support us to see this.”




The US alone provided UNRWA with $343 million in 2023. (AFP)

However, for all the efforts of such charities, Baskin told Arab News “there is no organization on the ground that can step in and replace what UNRWA does. Just looking at the others, they collectively offer less than 10 percent of what it provides.”

The chances of the US restoring its funding for UNRWA were dealt a blow last week when State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller told a briefing “we have to plan for the fact that Congress may make that pause permanent.”




Fourteen donors, including Germany, the UK, and the US, paused funding for UNRWA a little over a month ago. (AFP)

This is despite President Joe Biden having said that the work of UNRWA was “indispensable.”

Biden could use his executive powers to lift the suspension. But, according to Reuters, even if he did take such a unilateral step, he would only be able to release about $300,000 to the agency before having to turn to Congress once again for approval.




Israel is conducting a military campaign in Gaza in its war with Hamas. (AFP)

In a somewhat contradictory move, the Biden administration appears to be supporting a funding bill that would provide military aid to both Israel and Ukraine but which also contains a provision that would block UNRWA funding should it become law.

William Deere, director of UNRWA’s Washington representative office, told Reuters that with US support accounting for one third of the agency’s total budget, the loss — temporary or otherwise — would be “very hard to overcome.”

He said that UNRWA’s work extends beyond humanitarian relief for Gaza. “It’s health care, education and social services. It’s East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon” — everywhere Palestinian refugees reside in the region.




Israeli soldiers inside an evacuated compound. (AFP)

Meanwhile, the Israeli government has sought to discredit the agency — a challenge Jordanian analyst Osama Al-Sharif said that UNRWA has lived with “for decades.”

“As far as Israel goes, defunding UNRWA is part of a larger plan to bury the issue of Palestinian refugees and the political aspects tied to their fate under any future settlement,” Al-Sharif told Arab News.

“But the Gaza debacle has damaged the Israeli effort, as now almost all Gazans are displaced, including the original refugees. The international community will have to support UNRWA now to contain the humanitarian disaster there.”

Opinion

This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)

No matter what donor nations ultimately decide to do about their suspended funding, Baskin said that the internal and independent investigations into what involvement UNRWA staff had in the Oct. 7 attack had to be addressed for the sake of accountability.




A Palestinian carries sacks of humanitarian aid at the distribution center of UNRWA. (AFP)

In practice, he said that this would improve transparency, ensuring staff were not co-opting aid, pointing to issues surrounding the purported use of UNRWA sites by Hamas’ militant wing.

It would appear UNRWA’s future hinges not only on the outcome of the investigation but, as noted by former MP and director of the Conservative Middle East Council Charlotte Leslie, the agency proving the investigation’s veracity.

“If cleared of the allegations and demonstrably adequate steps are taken to ensure UNRWA itself does not pose a security risk, it would set a very damaging precedent if allegations alone were able to shut down an international organization,” Leslie told Arab News.

For Al-Sharif, the real question is about Palestine’s future. In his view, it is “essential to look at what is happening in Gaza not as a charity case but as a political problem that needs to be addressed by the international community.”




URNWA employees clear a damaged street following an Israeli raid. (AFP)

Describing funding for UNRWA as “vital but not enough,” he urged international actors to turn their attention to Gaza’s postwar situation, the future of the enclave, and broader issues relating to the Palestinian question.

“Allowing Israeli hard-liners to continue their quest to liquidate the Palestinians will keep this region in turmoil,” said Al-Sharif. “The international community is realizing this. As are regional leaders, who will push the world to address the Israeli occupation once and for all.”




A man gestures near a pool of blood at an UNRWA warehouse and distribution centre in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, following an Israeli strike. (AFP)

Concurring, Baskin said that the recognition of a Palestinian state would negate the need for UNRWA altogether.

“Once Palestine is recognized, UNRWA’s responsibilities there become the state’s,” he said. “This is the future for the region — for Palestinian statehood to be recognized by the world. This is what needs to happen. Maybe this is too much for people to imagine.”


Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog

Updated 26 November 2024
Follow

Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog

  • The war has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry

THE HAGUE: The world’s chemical watchdog said Monday that it was “seriously concerned” by large gaps in Syria’s declaration about its chemical weapons stockpile, as large quantities of potentially banned warfare agents might be involved.
Syria agreed in 2013 to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, shortly after an alleged chemical gas attack killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus.
“Despite more than a decade of intensive work, the Syrian Arab Republic chemical weapons dossier still cannot be closed,” the watchdog’s director-general Fernando Arias told delegates at the OPCW’s annual meeting.
The Hague-based global watchdog has previously accused President Bashar Assad’s regime of continued attacks on civilians with chemical weapons during the Middle Eastern country’s brutal civil war.
“Since 2014, the (OPCW) Secretariat has reported a total of 26 outstanding issues of which seven have been fulfilled,” in relation to chemical weapon stockpiles in Syria, Arias said.
“The substance of the remaining 19 outstanding issues is of serious concern as it involves large quantities of potentially undeclared or unverified chemical warfare agents and chemical munitions,” he told delegates.
Syria’s OPCW voting rights were suspended in 2021, an unprecedented rebuke, following poison gas attacks on civilians in 2017.
Last year the watchdog blamed Syria for a 2018 chlorine attack that killed 43 people, in a long-awaited report on a case that sparked tensions between Damascus and the West.
Damascus has denied the allegations and insisted it has handed over its stockpiles.
Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011 after the government’s repression of peaceful demonstrations escalated into a deadly conflict that pulled in foreign powers and global jihadists.
The war has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry.


Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon

Updated 26 November 2024
Follow

Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon

  • The defense ministry said “the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory, targeting crossing points that it had previously hit” between the two countries

DAMASUS: Syrian state television reported Israeli strikes on several bridges in the Qusayr region near the Lebanese border on Monday, with the defense ministry reporting two civilians injured in the attacks.
Israel’s military has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria since its conflict with Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into full-scale war in late September after almost a year of cross-border hostilities.
“An Israeli aggression targeted the bridges of Al-Jubaniyeh, Al-Daf, Arjoun, and the Al-Nizariyeh Gate in the Qusayr area,” state television said, with official news agency SANA reporting damage in the attacks.
The defense ministry said “the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory, targeting crossing points that it had previously hit” between the two countries.
The attacks “injured two civilians and caused material losses,” it added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, based in Britain, said the attacks had “killed two Syrians working with Hezbollah and injured five others,” giving a preliminary toll.
Earlier, the monitor with a network of sources in Syria had said the “Israeli strikes targeted” an official land border crossing in the Qusayr area and six bridges on the Orontes River near the border with Lebanon.
Since September, Israel has bombed land crossings between Lebanon and Syria, putting them out of service. It accuses Hezbollah of using the routes, key for people fleeing the war in Lebanon, to transfer weapons from Syria.

 

 


Iraqis sentenced to prison in $2.5bn corruption case

Updated 26 November 2024
Follow

Iraqis sentenced to prison in $2.5bn corruption case

  • A criminal court in Baghdad specializing in corruption cases issued the prison sentences ranging from three to 10 years, a statement from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said

BAGHDAD: An Iraqi court on Monday sentenced to prison former senior officials, a businessman and others for involvement in the theft of $2.5 billion in public funds — one of Iraq’s biggest corruption cases.
The three most high-profile individuals sentenced — businessman Nour Zuhair, as well as former prime minister Mustafa Al-Kadhemi’s cabinet director Raed Jouhi and a former adviser, Haitham Al-Juburi — are on the run and were tried in absentia.
The scandal, dubbed the “heist of the century,” has sparked widespread anger in Iraq, which is ravaged by rampant corruption, unemployment and decaying infrastructure after decades of conflict.
A criminal court in Baghdad specializing in corruption cases issued the prison sentences ranging from three to 10 years, a statement from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said.
Thirteen people received sentences on Monday, according to member of Parliament Mostafa Sanad.
Most of them, 10, are from Iraq’s tax authority and include its former director and deputy, he added on his Telegram channel.
Iraq revealed two years ago that at least $2.5 billion was stolen between September 2021 and August 2022 through 247 cheques that were cashed by five companies.
The money was then withdrawn in cash from the accounts of those firms.
A judicial source told AFP that some tax officials charged were in detention, without detailing how many.
Businessman Zuhair was sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to the judiciary statement.
He was arrested at Baghdad airport in October 2022 as he was trying to leave the country, but released on bail a month later after giving back more than $125 million and pledging to return the rest in instalments.
The wealthy businessman was back in the news in August after he reportedly had a car crash in Lebanon, following an interview he gave to an Iraqi news channel.
Juburi, the former prime ministerial adviser, received a three-year prison sentence. He also returned $2.6 million before disappearing, a judicial source told AFP.
Kadhemi’s cabinet director Raed Jouhi, also currently outside Iraq, was sentenced to six years in prison — alongside “a number of officials involved in the crime,” according to the judiciary’s statement.
Corruption is rampant across Iraq’s public institutions, but convictions typically target mid-level officials or minor players and rarely those at the top of the power hierarchy.
 

 


11 killed in Kurdish-led attacks in north Syria: war monitor

Updated 26 November 2024
Follow

11 killed in Kurdish-led attacks in north Syria: war monitor

  • Seven Turkiye-backed militants were also killed in the attack and in an operation by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces that control swathes of northeast Syria.

BEIRUT: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Monday 11 people including civilians were killed in attacks by a Kurdish-led force on positions of Turkiye-backed militants in north Syria.
“A woman, her two children and a man were killed... in the bombing of a military position... used by Ankara-backed factions for human smuggling operations to Turkiye,” the Britain-based monitor said.
It said seven Turkiye-backed militants were also killed in that incident and in an operation by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that control swathes of northeast Syria.
SDF special forces infiltrated a Turkiye-backed group’s military position and killed three militants, said the monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.
The SDF also booby-trapped a military position as they withdrew, in an attack that killed another four pro-Turkiye militants but also four civilians including a woman and her two children, the Observatory said.
On Sunday, 15 Ankara-backed Syrian militants were killed after the SDF infiltrated their territory, the monitor reported earlier.
The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded the fighting against the Daesh group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019.
It is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), viewed by Ankara as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Turkish troops and allied armed factions control swathes of northern Syria following successive cross-border offensives since 2016, most of them targeting the SDF.


Sudan women facing ‘epidemic of sexual violence’: UN

Updated 25 November 2024
Follow

Sudan women facing ‘epidemic of sexual violence’: UN

PORT SUDAN: The United Nations humanitarian chief raised the alarm on Monday over an “epidemic of sexual violence” against women in war-torn Sudan, saying the world “must do better.”
“I feel ashamed that we have not been able to protect you, and I feel ashamed for my fellow men for what they have done,” Tom Fletcher, who heads the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said on his first visit to Port Sudan.
The Red Sea city has become Sudan’s de facto capital since April 2023, when Khartoum was engulfed by war between the regular military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The war has claimed tens of thousands of lives, displaced more than 11 million people and created what the UN says is the worst humanitarian crisis in recent memory.
Nearly 26 million people — around half the population — face the threat of mass starvation, as both warring sides have been accused of using hunger as a weapon of war.
During his visit, Fletcher met army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and discussed efforts to “increase the delivery of aid across borders and across conflict lines.”
Aid workers and humanitarian agencies say Burhan’s army-aligned government has enforced severe bureaucratic hurdles to their work.
At an event in a Port Sudan school to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Fletcher said the world “must do better” by the women of Sudan, who have been exposed to systematic sexual violence.
The UN’s independent international fact-finding mission for Sudan last month documented escalating sexual violence, including “rape, sexual exploitation and abduction for sexual purposes as well as allegations of enforced marriages and human trafficking.”
“The sheer scale of sexual violence we have documented in Sudan is staggering,” said Mohamed Chande Othman, chair of the fact-finding mission.
“The situation faced by vulnerable civilians, in particular women and girls of all ages, is deeply alarming and needs urgent address,” he added.