The Guardian ranks UNRWA fifth-best thing about UN
Palestinian aid agency beats out UNESCO, while High Commissioner for Refugees, ICC top British paper’s list
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The Guardian on Wednesday ranked UNRWA — the UN agency tasked with aiding Palestinian refugees — as the fifth-best thing about the United Nations.
According to the rankings, compiled in honor of the 70th anniversary of the UN, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is the No. 1 UN agency, followed by the International Criminal Court, the World Food Programme, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). UNESCO ranked sixth on the list, after the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
UNRWA was created in 1949 to provide education, medical services and employment to some 750,000 registered Palestinian refugees following the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. Today, the number of aid recipients has mushroomed to over 5 million, due to a unique provision allowing Palestinian refugees to bequeath their status to their offspring, indefinitely.
The UN agency that treats all other refugees around the world, UNHCR, does not allow first-generation refugees to pass down their status.
In its article, the paper details UNRWA’s activities since 1949, while noting that the organization “has faced criticism from Israeli political figures and pro-Israeli commentators over a number of issues, most significantly whether its existence perpetuates the refugee problem and over issues of neutrality, to which it has always responded forcefully.
“Its facilities in Gaza have been the target of Israeli military strikes, most recently during last summer’s conflict when UNRWA schools being used as shelters were struck, causing numerous fatalities,” it wrote. Israel has said it would investigate the strikes on UN facilities, which prompted accusations of war crimes.
During last summer’s Gaza conflict, rocket stockpiles were discovered in UNRWA schools on three separate occasions.
In Jerusalem, officials charged that the weaponry was returned to Hamas. “The rockets were passed on to the government authorities in Gaza, which is Hamas. In other words, UNRWA handed to Hamas rockets that could well be shot at Israel,” a senior Israeli official told The Times of Israel at the time. UNRWA denied the allegations.
Elhanan Miller contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.