UNRWA says it’s raised enough funds to continue operations through September
Head of Palestinian refugee organization tells fundraising conference 14 donors have resumed funding and UK will likely join soon; Israel accuses UNRWA of employing terrorists
UNITED NATIONS — The head of the United Nations agency that deals with Palestinian refugees has said a donors conference 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 Friday morning that the agency known as UNRWA only had funds until the end of August.
At the end of the conference, he told reporters the total amount in pledges wouldn’t be known until the following week. But he said 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.
In the coming months, Lazzarini said UNRWA will be seeking funds to keep its operations going through December — and for emergency appeals for $1.2 billion for the Gaza war and $460 million for the Syria crisis, both of which are less than 20 percent funded.
At the conference, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said UNRWA faces “a profound funding gap” — and Palestinians are also seeing widening gaps in respect for international humanitarian law and recognition of their human rights and dignity.
UNRWA has been underfunded for years, but 2024 has been dire since Israel alleged that 12 of the agency’s 13,000 workers in Gaza participated in Hamas’s October 7 surprise attack in southern Israel. The attack saw terrorists kill some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnap 251, sparking the ongoing war in Gaza.
The agency terminated the contracts of all those employees. Still, 16 countries suspended funding for UNRWA, amounting to about $450 million.
Israel said hundreds of other employees had direct ties to terror groups in Gaza.
Lazzarini told 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 at least March 25, 2025.
Israel sent UNRWA a list this week of 108 of the organization’s employees Israel says are terrorists working for Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, demanding they be fired.
The IDF 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.
Guterres said at the conference that nothing justifies Hamas’s October 7 attacks in southern Israel, and “nothing justifies the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 38,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.
