Germany to resume funding for UNRWA after probe
Europe’s biggest economy announces it will once again cooperate with Palestinian refugee agency, citing probe that found Israeli claims against group lacked evidence
Germany said Wednesday it will resume cooperation with the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees after a review found Israel had not yet provided evidence that hundreds of staff were members of terrorist groups.
Israel alleged in January that some United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) employees may have participated in the October 7 Hamas attacks that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip and in which terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 253.
In the weeks that followed, numerous donor states, including Germany, suspended or paused some $450 million in funding.
Many, including Sweden, Canada and Japan, have since resumed funding.
Following the independent review’s release on Monday, Germany — Europe’s biggest economy, and a major donor to UNRWA — said it would also “continue its cooperation” with the agency again.
“Germany will coordinate closely with its closest international partners to disburse further funds,” said the German foreign and development ministries in a joint statement.
Germany said it was aiming to support “UNRWA’s vital and currently irreplaceable role in providing for the people in Gaza.”
UNRWA and other UN agencies must be able to carry out their jobs of distributing aid in the territory, which was “more important than ever in light of the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” the statement said.
The review, led by French diplomat Catherine Colonna, found some “neutrality-related issues” at the agency, but noted that “Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence” for its claim that UNRWA employs more than 400 “terrorists.”
The neutrality issues highlighted included staff sharing biased political posts on social media and the use of a small number of textbooks with “problematic content” in some UNRWA schools.
For years, the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education has been raising the alarm over UNRWA’s textbooks, which it has said are systematically inciteful against Israel and antisemitic.
While UNRWA itself welcomed the findings, Israel said the report “ignores the severity of the problem.” The Foreign Ministry on Monday charged that Hamas’s penetration of UNRWA is so deep that “it is impossible to say where UNRWA ends and Hamas begins.”
Berlin called for the report’s recommendations to be implemented without delay.
The United States has yet to restore funding to the agency, however, with the White House saying Tuesday it would “have to see real progress” before doing so.
Another UN probe is also looking into Israel’s allegations.
