The UN agency for the Palestinians loses half of its budget due to the investigation of its workers

In just 96 hours, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has lost 16 donor countries that contributed half of its budget.

The trickle of announcements of cessation of financing has continued this Monday, with Austria and Japan - the sixth largest contributor - due to the alleged involvement in the Hamas attack on October 7 of 12 local employees of the agency, which has fired nine and is clarifying the identity of two others (one more has died).

The agency estimates that it will only have funds to operate until the end of February, says its Communications Director, Juliette Touma.

They serve to provide education (to which it dedicates 59% of its budget), manage clinics, help buy food and clothing, give microcredits or support single mothers for a total of 5.9 million Palestinian refugees.

Some countries, such as Spain, Ireland or Norway, have announced, however, that they will maintain the contributions, while the European Commission (the EU is the third contributor) will wait for the result of the internal investigation of the United Nations and will carry out its own audit.

The economic blow affects refugees and their 30,000 workers in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, but concern is focused on the Strip because the agency is the main humanitarian actor in an enclave "turned uninhabitable." in the words of UN emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths.

The war has changed its daily activity: it coordinates the entry of humanitarian aid, its schools and medical centers have become shelters for a million people, it has lost about 150 employees due to Israeli bombings and only 3,000 of the 13,000 they keep working.

Before the war, in 2022, UNRWA attended 3.5 million consultations in Gaza in its 22 medical centers and had some 290,000 students in its 278 schools, according to its latest annual report.

Of the 2.3 million Gazans, 1.5 million are registered as refugees.

The latest plea has come from the director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

He asked countries this Sunday to reverse their decision because “at this critical moment it will only harm the people of Gaza who desperately need support.”

That same day, UN Secretary General António Guterres issued a measured message: “While I understand your concerns – I myself was horrified by these accusations – I firmly call on governments that have suspended their contributions to, at least, ensure the continuity of UNRWA operations.”

We appeal to donors not to suspend their funding to @UNRWA at this critical moment.

Cutting off funding will only hurt the people of #Gaza who desperately need support.https://t.co/xx85VOCIjx

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) January 28, 2024

The American newspaper

The New York Times

released this Monday information from the dossier that Israel has provided to the United Nations on the 12 employees.

One is accused of kidnapping a woman, another of participating in a massacre in a kibbutz and a third of having given ammunition to the militiamen.

In addition, one of the Israeli hostages in Gaza freed in November in an exchange for Palestinian prisoners has claimed that he was held in the home of a teacher from the agency.

The report would be the first phase of a three-phase plan that appears in a confidential document from the Israeli Foreign Ministry reported on national television channel 12 at the end of December.

The second would consist of gradually stripping the UN agency of powers and the third, giving them to the authority - yet to be defined - that governs Gaza after the conflict.

A few days later, a political source cited by the newspaper

Israel Hayom

pointed out that the country “will strive to find an alternative” to the agency when the war ends, because right now “it is the only group that knows” how to distribute food, water and medications.

Israel maintains a long-standing campaign against UNRWA, accusing it of helping to perpetuate the Middle East conflict, of colluding with the Hamas government in Gaza and of educating hate in schools.

Since 2015, a parliamentary lobby to “reform UNRWA” has proposed stripping descendants of refugee status, so only a few hundred thousand elderly people would be refugees.

Other critics accuse her of corruption and inefficiency.

The Israeli Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, announced this Monday the cancellation of the meeting scheduled for Wednesday between ministry personnel and the head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini.

“UNRWA employees participated in the October 7 massacre.

Lazzarini should draw conclusions and resign.

Those who support terrorism are not welcome here,” he wrote on X, the social network formerly called Twitter.

Already the day before he had questioned him directly through that same medium with the phrase: “Mr.

Lazzarini, please resign.”

It was his response to my calling it “immensely irresponsible” to suspend funding over “allegations against a small group of staff” just during the war in Gaza and “given the immediate steps UNRWA took by terminating its contracts and requesting an independent investigation.” and transparent.”

Vulnerable to controversies

The agency has had funding problems for years.

Its structure makes it particularly vulnerable to controversy, such as in 2018, when the then president of the United States, Donald Trump, canceled contributions.

94% of its annual budget, about 1,170 million dollars (1,080 million euros), depends on voluntary contributions from States that, in addition, acquire payment commitments that they are not obliged to fulfill.

The rest comes from the United Nations budget, contributions from other agencies, international organizations, NGOs or private donations.

Therefore, just the loss of two heavyweights like the United States and Germany already leaves a huge hole in the organization.

The first gave 343.9 million dollars in 2022 (last year with definitive data).

The second, 202 million.

Between them they add up to 46% of the budget.

UNRWA has lost other of its top 20 contributors, although with significantly lower amounts, such as Japan (30 million), Canada (23), the Netherlands, the United Kingdom (both with 21), Italy (18) and Australia (13). .

Flour distribution by UNRWA in Rafah, on January 29.

IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA (REUTERS)

UNRWA only deals with Palestinian refugees, so it is more exposed to the vicissitudes of the Middle East conflict.

The rest in the world is handled by another United Nations agency, UNHCR, which was born at the same time and is more in charge of providing protection and temporary help and, if circumstances arise, facilitating resettlement.

Al wikala

(the agency, in Arabic), as the Palestinians usually call it, was created by the United Nations General Assembly in 1949, at the end of the first Arab-Israeli war and as a result of the Nakba, the flight or expulsion of two thirds of the Palestinians of the territory of the State of Israel that had just been born.

Its mandate is to provide them with humanitarian assistance and protection until a “just and lasting” situation is achieved, which has never been achieved.

It is the same Assembly that had declared a year earlier, in its resolution 194, that “refugees who wish to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbors should be allowed to do so as soon as possible.”

As it was conceived as a temporary tool, it has to renew its mandate every three years.

And, as descendants inherit refugee status, the around 700,000 then are today – several generations later – 5.9 million.

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