UNRWA Lebanon says its operations not affected by US funding freeze, Israeli ban

UN agency’s director tells reporters Lebanese chapter was not receiving American funding anyway, and Israel’s ban only applies to activity within Israeli territory

Palestinian children who fled with their parents from their houses in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, gather in the backyard of an UNRWA school, in Sidon, Lebanon, September 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari, File)
Palestinian children who fled with their parents from their houses in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, gather in the backyard of an UNRWA school, in Sidon, Lebanon, September 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari, File)

The director of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon said on Wednesday that the agency had not been affected by US President Donald Trump’s halting of foreign aid funding or by an Israeli ban on its operations.

“UNRWA currently is not receiving any US funding, so there is no direct impact of the more recent decisions related to the UN system for UNRWA,” Dorothee Klaus told reporters at UNRWA’s field office in Lebanon.

US funding to UNRWA was suspended last year until March 2025 under a deal reached by US lawmakers. Israel had accused 12 of the agency’s 13,000 employees in Gaza of participating in the deadly October 7, 2023, Hamas attack in which terrorists murdered some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.

The UN has said it had fired nine UNRWA staff who may have been involved and said it would investigate all accusations made.

Klaus said that UNRWA Lebanon had also placed four staff members on administrative leave as it investigated allegations they had breached the UN principle of neutrality.

One UNRWA teacher had already been suspended last year and a Hamas commander in Lebanon – killed in September in an Israeli strike – was found to have had an UNRWA job.

Dorothee Klaus, Director of UNRWA in Lebanon, speaks during an interview with the Associated Press, in Beirut, Lebanon, August 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Klaus also said there was “no direct impact” on the agency’s Lebanon operations from a new Israeli law banning UNRWA operations in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and that “UNRWA will continue fully operating in Lebanon.”

The law, adopted in October, bans UNRWA’s operation on Israeli land – including East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in a move not recognized internationally – and contact with Israeli authorities from January 30.

UNRWA provides aid, health and education services to millions in the Palestinian territories and neighboring Arab countries of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

Its commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini said on Tuesday that UNRWA has been the target of a “fierce disinformation campaign” to “portray the agency as a terrorist organization.”

Israel has alleged that more than 10% of UNRWA’s staff in Gaza have ties to terrorist factions and that educational facilities under the organization’s auspices consistently incite hatred of Israel and glorify terror.

In February, the IDF revealed the existence of a subterranean Hamas data center directly beneath UNRWA’s Gaza Strip headquarters. The IDF has also repeatedly targeted Hamas command centers and gunmen hiding out in UNRWA schools.

Israel was extremely critical of UNRWA long before October 7, saying that its near uniqueness in the world — granting refugee status not just to the first generation of refugees but to their descendants — perpetuated the conflict and a culture of dependence among Palestinians.

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