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)
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Updated 20 March 2024
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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.”

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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.”


Israeli airstrikes kill at least 30 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say

Updated 8 sec ago
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Israeli airstrikes kill at least 30 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say

  • Airstrikes in Gaza kill at least 30, Palestinian medics and media say
  • Israeli military says it ‘eliminated terrorists’ in latest operations

CAIRO: Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 30 Palestinians since Monday night, Palestinian media and medics said on Tuesday, as the Israeli army tightened its siege on northern areas of the enclave.
An airstrike damaged two houses in the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, where the army has carried out new operations since Oct. 5, and killed at least 20 people late on Monday, the Palestinian official news agency WAFA and Hamas media said.
The Gaza health ministry did not immediately confirm the toll. Four other people were killed in the central Gazan town of Al-Zawayda around midnight on Monday, medics said.
Palestinian health officials said six people had also been killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City and Deir Al-Balah in the central area of the narrow enclave.
The Israeli military said, without giving details, that its forces had “eliminated terrorists” in the central Gaza Strip and Jabalia area. Israeli troops had also located weapons and explosives over the past day in the southern Rafah area, where “terrorist infrastructure sites” had been eliminated, it said.
Palestinians said the new attacks and Israeli orders for people to evacuate were aimed at emptying two northern Gaza towns and a refugee camp to create buffer zones.
Israel says its forces have killed hundreds of Palestinian gunmen and dismantled military infrastructure in Jabalia in the past month.
More than 43,300 Palestinians have been killed in more than a year of war in Gaza, the authorities in Gaza say, and much of the territory has been reduced to ruins.
The war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.


Sudan paramilitaries kill 10 civilians: activists

Updated 11 min 1 sec ago
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Sudan paramilitaries kill 10 civilians: activists

PORT SUDAN: Ten civilians were killed in the central Sudanese state of Al-Jazira, pro-democracy activists said on Tuesday, in an attack they blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The Madani Resistance Committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid across the country, said the RSF carried out the killings on Monday night in the village of Barborab, about 85 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of the state capital Wad Madani.


Gaza aid situation not much improved, US says as deadline for Israel looms

Updated 05 November 2024
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Gaza aid situation not much improved, US says as deadline for Israel looms

  • Washington told Israel on Oct. 13 it had 30 days to take steps to address humanitarian crisis in Gaza
  • Israel on Monday announced cancelling agreement with UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA)

WASHINGTON: Israel has taken some measures to increase aid access to Gaza but has so far failed to significantly turn around the humanitarian situation in the enclave, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday, as a deadline set by the US to improve the situation approaches.
The Biden administration told Israel in an Oct. 13 letter it had 30 days to take specific steps to address the dire humanitarian crisis in the strip, which has been pummeled for more than a year by Israeli ground and air operations that Israel says are aimed at rooting out Hamas militants.
Aid workers and UN officials say humanitarian conditions continue to be dire in Gaza.
“As of today, the situation has not significantly turned around. We have seen an increase in some measurements. We’ve seen an increase in the number of crossings that are open. But just if you look at the stipulated recommendations in the letter, those have not been met,” Miller said.
Miller said the results so far were “not good enough” but stressed that the 30-day period had not elapsed.
He declined to say what consequences Israel would face if it failed to implement the recommendations.
“What I can tell you that we will do is we will follow the law,” he said.
Washington, Israel’s main supplier of weapons, has frequently pressed Israel to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza since the war with Hamas began with the Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel.
The Oct. 13 letter, sent by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, said a failure to demonstrate a sustained commitment to implementing the measures on aid access may have implications for US policy and law.
Section 620i of the US Foreign Assistance Act prohibits military aid to countries that impede delivery of US humanitarian assistance.
Israel on Monday said it was canceling its agreement with the UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), citing accusations that some UNRWA staff had Hamas links.
UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said Israel had scaled back the entry of aid trucks into the Gaza Strip to an average of 30 trucks a day, the lowest in a long time.
An Israeli government spokesman said no limit had been imposed on aid entering Gaza, with 47 aid trucks entering northern Gaza on Sunday alone.
Israeli statistics reviewed by Reuters last week showed that aid shipments allowed into Gaza in October remained at their lowest levels since October 2023.


Israel issues 7,000 new draft orders for ultra-Orthodox members

Updated 05 November 2024
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Israel issues 7,000 new draft orders for ultra-Orthodox members

JERUSALEM: Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant issued 7,000 additional army draft orders Monday for individuals from the country’s ultra-Orthodox community, historically exempted from mandatory service until a June Supreme Court decision.
Gallant approved the Israeli army’s “recommendation to issue an additional 7,000 orders for screening and evaluation processes for ultra-Orthodox draft-eligible individuals in the upcoming phase, which is expected to begin in the coming days,” the defense ministry said in a statement.
The order comes after a first round of 3,000 draft orders were sent out in July, sparking protests from the ultra-Orthodox community.
Monday’s orders come at a time when Israel is struggling to bolster troop numbers as it fights a multi-front war, with ground forces deployed to fight Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“The defense minister concluded that the war and the challenges we face underscore the (Israeli army’s) need for additional soldiers. This is a tangible operational need that requires broad national mobilization from all parts of society,” the ministry said.
In Israel, military service is mandatory for Jewish men for 32 months, and for 24 months for Jewish women.
The ultra-Orthodox account for 14 percent of Israel’s Jewish population, according to the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), representing about 1.3 million people.
About 66,000 of those of conscription age are exempted, according to the army.
Under a rule adopted at Israel’s creation in 1948, when it applied to only 400 people, the ultra-Orthodox have historically been exempted from military service if they dedicate themselves to the study of sacred Jewish texts.
In June, Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the draft of yeshiva (seminary) students after deciding the government could not keep up the exemption “without an adequate legal framework.”
Hamas’s October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 43,374 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to Gaza health ministry figures which the United Nations considers to be reliable.
Since late September, Israel has broadened the focus of its war to Lebanon, where it intensified air strikes and later sent in ground troops, following nearly a year of tit-for-tat cross-border fire with Hezbollah.


Palestinians build new lives in Cairo’s ‘Little Gaza’

Updated 05 November 2024
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Palestinians build new lives in Cairo’s ‘Little Gaza’

CAIRO: Palestinian Bassem Abu Aoun serves Gaza-style turkey shawarma at his restaurant in an eastern Cairo neighborhood, where a growing number of businesses opened by those fleeing war have many dubbing the area “Little Gaza.”
“It was a big gamble,” said the 56-year-old about opening his restaurant, Hay Al-Rimal, named after his neighborhood in Gaza City, now devastated by Israeli bombardment.
“I could live for a year on the money I had, or open a business and leave the rest to fate,” he said.
So less than four months after fleeing with his family to neighboring Egypt from the besieged Palestinian territory, he opened his eatery in Cairo’s Nasr City neighborhood.
The establishment is one of the many cafes, falafel joints, shawarma spots and sweets shops being started by newly arriving Palestinian entrepreneurs in the area — despite only being granted temporary stays by Egypt.
These spaces have become a refuge for the traumatized Gazan community in Cairo, offering a livelihood to business owners, many of whom lost everything in the war.
“Even if the war stops now in Gaza, it would take me at least two or three years to get my life back on track,” Abu Aoun said.
“Everything has been wiped out there,” he continued.
His patrons are mainly fellow Palestinians, chatting in their distinct Gazan dialect as they devour sandwiches that remind them of home.
On a wall next to his shop was a mural of intertwining Egyptian and Palestinian flags.
“I have a responsibility to my family and children who are in university,” said the restaurateur, whose two eateries in Gaza have now been completely destroyed.
Abu Aoun and his family are among more than 120,000 Palestinians who arrived in Egypt between November last year and May, according to Palestinian officials in Egypt.
They crossed through the Rafah border crossing, Gaza’s only exit point to the outside world until Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side in early May and closed it ever since.
Although Egypt insists it won’t do Israel’s bidding by allowing permanent refugee camps on its territory, it had allowed in medical evacuees, dual passport holders and others who managed to escape.
Many drained their life savings to escape, paying thousands of dollars a head to the private Egyptian travel agency Hala, the only company coordinating Gaza evacuations.
War broke out in Gaza on October 7, 2023, after Hamas’s surprise attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed 43,374 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry which the UN considers reliable.

Gazan-style desserts
Opening the restaurant was not an easy decision for Abu Aoun, but he says he’s glad he did it.
“I’ll open a second branch and expand,” he said with a smile, while watching a family from Central Asia being served a traditional Gazan salad.
Nearby is Kazem, a branch of a decades-old, much-loved Gaza establishment serving iced dessert drinks.
Its Palestinian owner, Kanaan Kazem, opened the branch in September after settling in Cairo.
The shop offers ice cream on top of a drink sprinkled with pistachios, a Gazan-style treat known as “bouza w barad,” which has become a fast favorite among the Egyptian patrons filling the shop.
“There’s a certain fear and hesitation about opening a business in a place where people don’t know you,” said Kazem, 66.
But “if we’re destined never to return, we must adapt to this new reality and start a new life,” he said, standing alongside his sons.
Kazem hopes to return to Gaza, but his son Nader, who manages the shop, has decided to stay in Egypt.
“There are more opportunities, safety and stability here, and it’s a large market,” said Nader, a father of two.
Gazan patron Bashar Mohammed, 25, takes comfort in the flourishing Palestinian businesses.
“Little Gaza reminds me of Gaza’s spirit and beauty and makes me feel like I’m really in Gaza,” he said.
After more than a year of war, Gaza has become uninhabitable due to extensive destruction and damage to infrastructure, according to the United Nations.
“It’d be hard to go back to Gaza. There’s no life left there,” he said, taking a deep breath.
“I have to build a new life here.”