UN chief pleads for Palestinian refugee agency funding

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday pleaded for donors to fund the embattled UN agency for Palestinian refugees, warning there was no alternative despite Israeli criticism of the body.

At a pledging conference, Guterres warns that the Palestinians would lose a “critical lifeline” without the agency known as UNRWA.

“Let me be clear — there is no alternative to UNRWA,” he says.

“Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse in Gaza — somehow, appallingly, civilians are being pushed into ever deeper circles of hell.”

Philippe Lazzarini, the chief of UNRWA, says the agency will be unable to function beyond August without receiving more funding.

A UN emergency appeal for $1.2 billion for the Palestinians by the end of the year, along with an appeal for neighboring countries, has received less than 20 percent of the funding it needs, Lazzarini said.

Israel, long critical of UNRWA, alleged in January that a number of the agency’s employees participated in the October 7 attack by Hamas.

The plea comes the same day as Israel said the military located weapons and a command room used by Hamas at UNRWA’s headquarters in Gaza City.

The UNRWA headquarters had not been in use in recent months. The IDF raided the compound earlier this year, discovering a major Hamas tunnel network that passed beneath it.