Australia to resume funding for UNRWA, pledges further aid for Gaza
‘UNRWA is not a terrorist organization,’ says Australian FM after Israeli allegations that some of the UN Palestinian refugee agency’s staff took part in October 7 onslaught
SYDNEY — Australia will restore funding to the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians, weeks after the agency lost hundreds of millions of dollars in support following Israeli allegations that some of its Gaza-based staff participated in Hamas’s October 7 terror attack.
The Australian government also pledged Friday to increase aid for the besieged enclave, with Foreign Minister Penny Wong expressing horror at the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Australia’s move follows Sweden, the European Commission and Canada in reinstating funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, which had seen its international funding frozen while the allegations were investigated.
“The best available current advice from agencies and the Australian government lawyers is that UNRWA is not a terrorist organization,” Wong told reporters Friday in Adelaide while she announced the aid package.
“(We have) been working with a group of donor countries and with UNRWA on the shared objective of ensuring the integrity of UNRWA’s operations, rebuilding confidence, and so importantly, ensuring aid flows to Gazans in desperate need.”
Israel has accused at least a dozen UNRWA staffers of being active Hamas members involved in the October 7 massacre, and many others of being members of terror groups in Gaza.
A small number of the agency’s staff were fired following the accusations.
Australia, alongside 15 international partners, froze funding to UNRWA in January, leaving the agency — which employs roughly 13,000 people in Gaza and is the main supplier of food, water and shelter there — on the brink of financial collapse.
Wong also pledged an additional 4 million Australian dollars ($2.6 million) to UNICEF to provide urgent services in Gaza, and a C17 Globemaster plane will also deliver defense force parachutes to help with the US-led airdropping of humanitarian supplies into the enclave, which is on the brink of famine, according to the United Nations.
The US is also scrambling to open a new humanitarian aid corridor by building a floating dock off the coast of Gaza so aid can flow by sea.
Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, in which about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and over 250 taken hostage, sparked Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. According to the Hamas-run health ministry, over 31,000 have been killed in the Israeli offensive, a figure that doesn’t differentiate between fighters and noncombatants, and is believed to include civilians killed by terror groups’ errant rocket fire.
