UNRWA chief says agency cashflows to turn negative next month if funding not resumed

By Agencies 15 February 2024, 10:44 am

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Displaced Palestinian people sit on benches as they wait outside a clinic of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on January 28, 2024 (Photo by AFP)

Cashflows at the UN agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, will turn negative next month and its financial problems will accelerate in April if funding suspended by a number of countries does not resume, the head of the agency says.

“We will hit a negative cashflow as from March and then it will be accelerated in April unless this frozen contribution is unlocked,” UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini tells Irish national broadcaster RTE before a meeting in Dublin with the country’s foreign minister.

Several nations halted funding for the agency amid accusations that at least 12 of the UN agency’s workers actively participated in the Hamas terror group’s October 7 massacre and hostage-taking in Israel.