UNRWA director says enough funds donated to keep running until end of September

The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees says a donors conference has raised enough money to keep its operations in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon running until the end of September.
Philippe Lazzarini told the pledging conference at its opening yesterday morning that UNRWA only had funds until the end of August.
At the end of the conference, he tells reporters the total amount in pledges won’t be known until the following week. But he says he is confident there will be enough new money in its $850 million annual budget to keep the agency running for another month and pay its 30,000 staff who provide education, primary health care and other development activities to about 6 million Palestinian refugees.
UNRWA has been tight on funds since Israel alleged that 12 of the agency’s 13,000 workers in Gaza participated in Hamas’s October 7 massacre in southern Israel that sparked the ongoing war in Gaza. The agency terminated the contracts of all those employees. Still, 16 countries suspended funding UNRWA, amounting to about $450 million.
Israel has long accused UNRWA of funneling money into Hamas’s coffers and letting the terror group use the agency’s facilities. The IDF has found a Hamas data center located directly beneath UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City, in addition to numerous findings indicating the use of the agency’s assets for terror purposes.
Lazzarini tells reporters that 14 donors have officially resumed funding and he believes “very soon” a 15th country — the United Kingdom — will come back.
The United States, which was the biggest donor to UNRWA, providing the agency with $340 million in 2022 and several hundred million in 2023, was among the countries halting funding. The US Congress has prohibited any payments to UNRWA until March 25, 2025.