Sweden says it will stop funding UNRWA, will increase Gaza aid to other agencies
Minister Chikli hails decision as ‘courageous and critical,’ says UNRWA ‘lost its legitimacy’ due to Oct. 7 connections; Sweden says Knesset ban on UNRWA led to decision
Sweden announced on Friday that it will no longer fund the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and their descendants, UNRWA.
The Nordic country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, told the Swedish TV4 network that Stockholm will instead bolster its humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip via other channels.
Sweden’s decision to end funding for UNRWA was in response to a recent Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid to the Palestinians via the agency more difficult, Dousa said.
Sweden plans to increase its overall humanitarian assistance to Gaza next year, he added.
“There are several other organizations in Gaza, I have just been there and met several of them,” the minister said, naming the UN World Food Programme as one potential recipient.
Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli hailed Sweden’s decision, saying it was “courageous and critical,” and that UNRWA “has lost its legitimacy to exist” due to involvement in terror activities by staff members.
A courageous and critical decision by the Swedish government. UNRWA, whose personnel actively participated in the October 7 atrocities, whose facilities became terror hubs, and whose schools spread Hamas propaganda and incitement, has lost its legitimacy to exist. pic.twitter.com/AIxxkpziOa
— עמיחי שיקלי – Amichai Chikli (@AmichaiChikli) December 20, 2024
Israel has long had a combative relationship with UNRWA, which it argues has perpetuated the Palestinian refugee crisis by allowing the status to be passed down through generations. Frustration with UNRWA in Jerusalem has picked up over the past decade as Israel has found the Gaza-ruling Hamas terror group embedded within the agency’s infrastructure.
That anger has peaked since Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, in which a number of UNRWA staffers were found to have participated, including kidnapping and killing Israelis. Israel has alleged that 10 percent of the UN agency’s staff in Gaza have ties to terror groups — a charge the agency says it has no evidence of.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw 251 people abducted as hostages to Gaza.
In October of this year, the Knesset overwhelmingly voted in favor of banning the agency from operations inside Israel and severely limiting its operations in the West Bank and Gaza.
The United Nations has repeatedly argued there is no alternative to UNRWA. Israel says its job can be carried out by other agencies it views as less corrupted by terror support.
The UN has said nine UNRWA staff may have been involved in the attack and had been fired. Later, a Hamas commander in Lebanon killed in September by Israel was found to have had a UNRWA job.
In October, UNRWA confirmed that a Hamas Nukbha commander killed in an Israeli strike, who led the killing and kidnapping of Israelis from a roadside bomb shelter near Kibbutz Re’im on October 7 last year, had been employed by the agency since July 2022.
Top UN officials and the Security Council describe UNRWA as the backbone of the aid response in Gaza, where Israel and Hamas have been at war for the past year, leaving the enclave in ruins.
UNRWA was established in 1949 following Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. It provides aid, health and education to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and neighboring Arab countries — Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
It is only one of two UN refugee agencies. While UNRWA caters to Palestinians, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is responsible for all other refugees around the world.
The United Nations has repeatedly argued there is no alternative to UNRWA. Israel says its job can be carried out by other agencies it views as less corrupted by terror support.
