Nations should not suspend UNRWA funding despite allegations of involvement in Oct 7 attack, say analysts

Allegations that some members of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) were involved in the Oct 7 Hamas attack on Israel are not reason enough to suspend the agency’s funding, experts said as several countries paused their contributions.

“You don't suspend lifesaving aid based just on allegations at a time of extreme humanitarian catastrophe,” said senior politics and international lecturer Srinjoy Bose from the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

Speaking to CNA’s Asia Now on Monday (Jan 29), he noted that the 12 members of the agency who have been implicated make up a small proportion of the UNRWA. The agency is made up of about 13,000 core employees and is the main humanitarian organisation on the ground, providing relief to about 2.3 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza.

He stressed that what has been said are only allegations against UNRWA, and the UN has committed to investigating these.

The UNRWA said last Friday that Israeli authorities have provided the agency with information about the alleged involvement of its employees in the attack that left about 1,200 people dead. It said it had opened an investigation into several employees and acted swiftly to fire staff.

Countries including the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland have suspended their funding of the agency in the wake of the allegations.

The agency is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions apart from a limited subsidy from the UN, which according to UNRWA, is used only for administrative costs. It received about US$1.17 billion in total pledges in 2022, with the largest amounts coming from the US, Germany and the European Union.

ALLEGATIONS NOT YET FOUNDED

Professor Jason Hart, who teaches Humanitarianism & Development at University of Bath in England, similarly said the allegations are not reason enough to suspend UNRWA’s funding “when the aid itself is so desperately needed”.

Since Israel launched its retaliatory strikes following the Oct 7 attack, around 1 million Gazans, or nearly 45 per cent of the enclave's population, have sought shelter in UNRWA schools, clinics and other public buildings.

Nearly the entire Gazan population now relies on UNRWA for basic necessities, including food, water and hygiene supplies.

Prof Hart noted that there has not been in-depth evidence to suggest that the allegations have been founded.

“These kinds of allegations are consistent with Israel's efforts over many years to delegitimise UNRWA, to effectively destroy that organisation, since it stands in the way of Israel's larger plans for its own country and for the Palestinian populations in surrounding countries as well,” Prof Hart told CNA’s World Tonight on Tuesday.

The experts’ comments echo appeals by UN chief Antonio Guterres and UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini for countries not to suspend funding.

"It would be immensely irresponsible to sanction an agency and an entire community it serves because of allegations of criminal acts against some individuals, especially at a time of war, displacement and political crises in the region,” said Mr Lazzarini.

NEED FOR CEASEFIRE

When asked what it would take for UNRWA to regain the trust of donor countries, Dr Bose said that the onus is not on the agency.

“The onus is on the western community not to withhold lifesaving aid, to commence aid at the earliest opportunity and above and beyond, first, to call for a ceasefire,” he said.

He noted that withholding of funding to UNRWA, which is providing  life-sustaining relief to refugees, could amount to complicity in genocide under the Genocide Convention.

Both academics said the suspension of funding goes against the recent International Court of Justice judgement, which noted that deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction in part or in all is a breach of the Genocide Convention.

“It is possible that allies of Israel can be complicit in flouting the Genocide Convention,” said Dr Bose.

Gaza's health officials said that more than 26,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, with thousands more bodies likely under the rubble of destroyed buildings.

IMPACT ON PALESTINIANS

The analysts said that without UNRWA relief, there is likely to be no such help in Gaza.

“The immediate impact on Palestinian peoples will be worsening of the ongoing catastrophe … and more persons will be forced to flee outside of Gaza. The long-term impact of the ‘decapitation’ of UNRWA, so to speak, will be destroying the Palestinians’ right to return to Palestine,” said Dr Bose.

Prof Hart noted that there is no other organisation that is in any way ready to fill the gap that will be left by UNRWA.

“Whichever organisation is left to do that work in the medium- to long- term will have to contend with mass destruction of civilian facilities, including UNRWA clinics and UNRWA schools, universities, hospitals of various kinds, churches, mosques,” he said.

“The wholesale destruction of civilian infrastructure will have severe implications for the efforts of any humanitarian organisation to deliver effective aid and to deliver basic services in the forms of education and health care.”