UN Chief Urges Countries to Reconsider as Funding for Palestinian Aid Collapses

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Facts

• UN Secretary-General António Guterres this weekend urged 10 countries who withdrew funding from the primary aid agency in Gaza to reconsider, stating that Palestinians should not be penalized as a whole for the actions of a few aid workers.¹
• This comes after the UN's Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) reported Friday that, according to Israeli authorities, there were allegations that several UNRWA staff participated in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.²
• UNRWA said that while a full investigation is ongoing, it decided to fire the alleged members of staff. It also reiterated its condemnation of the Oct. 7 attacks and called for hostages held by Hamas to be released immediately.²
• The agency hires 13K staff in the Gaza Strip — most of them Palestinians. With the Israel-Hamas war killing upwards of 26K Palestinians, and with 85% of Gaza's 2.3M people internally displaced, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said that more than 2M Palestinians in Gaza relied on the agency for 'sheer survival.'³
• After Lazzarini announced the probe into UNRWA staff, the US — one of the largest donors to the agency — disclosed that a total of 12 employees were under investigation. The US also announced that it had immediately suspended funding to the organization, with countries including Britain, Germany, and Italy soon following suit.³
• Later, Lazzarini said he was shocked by the decisions taken by the 10 countries, stating that the agency's life-saving assistance will soon dry up and that 'famine looms' in Gaza. 'Palestinians in Gaza did not need this additional collective punishment,' he said on X. 'This stains all of us.'³

Sources: ¹Guardian, ²UNRWA and ³Associated Press.

Narratives

• Pro-Palestine narrative, as provided by AL. The decision to halt all funding to the UNRWA will push Gaza to the brink of famine. Israel has already hindered the agency from helping the Palestinian people by bombing several of its locations, but now the humanitarian body could run out of all supplies within a month. This is not about punishing Hamas but starving Palestinians.
• Pro-Israel narrative, as provided by The Times of Israel. Reports into what some of these UNRWA staff did on the day of Oct. 7 are appalling, and at the very least, fall way below the standard expected by the UN. Funding to UNRWA should be halted until this mess is cleaned up and the agency is replaced with a more appropriate humanitarian delivery structure.

Predictions