Funding crisis to improve for UNRWA

Head of UNRWA on April 23rd claimed the organisation’s financial crisis has somewhat improved, according to The National and agencies.

Following the unprecedented October 7th Hamas attack, Israel stated that the UN Relief and Works Agency, otherwise known as UNRWA, was associated with the terrorist organisation.

In fact, Israel accused 12 out of the 13,000 Gaza-based employees of participating in the attack that led to the death of 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 250.

READ: Jordan King pushes for UNRWA funding to be restored

As a result, several countries, including the UK and the US, decided to immediately discontinue the funding provided to the association as an act of collective punishment.

Soon after, the organisation declared that, as 25% of households were already experiencing near-famine conditions, without funding it would not be able to continue operating in the Strip past February.

“In January, within 48 hours, we had 16 to 18 countries who indicated the temporary freeze or suspension”, stated head of UNRWA Philippe Lazzarini.

“Since then, a number of countries have come back and many have also come back after the release of the intermediary report”, he continued.

READ: Israel killed 133 of UNRWA employees in Gaza

Japan, Australia, Canada, Finland and Germany are among the nations that resumed donations to the agency.

However, UNRWA’s leading donor USA has yet to restore funding.

On January 30th, the US stated that funding would have been reinstated upon seeing “fundamental changes”.

US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield had claimed, “We need to look at the organization, how it operates in Gaza, how they manage their staff and to ensure that people who commit criminal acts, such as these 12 individuals, are held accountable immediately so that UNRWA can continue the essential work that it’s doing.”

The National and agencies