UNRWA is responsible for approximately 2.2 million Gazans, refugees and others, as a result of the Israeli aggression on the Strip (Anatolia)

Gaza -

For many years, Muhammad Hamdi and his family have been living on relief aid provided periodically by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), to the fragile and poorest groups of refugees in the Gaza Strip.

Following the decision of the United States and a number of Western countries to suspend their funding to the UN agency, Hamdi fears that this aid will stop for his family of 11 members.

Washington, Italy, Canada, Australia, Britain, Finland, and other countries quickly suspended their funding for UNRWA following Israeli allegations about the alleged participation of a number of agency employees in the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) attack on the “Gaza envelope” settlements on October 7 last year.

Refugees in danger

The United States' decision would negatively affect the vital services provided by the agency in the fields of health, education, and relief, especially since it has been complaining for years of a budget deficit that forced it to reduce some of its services provided to refugees in Gaza and its five areas of operations.

Muhammad Hamdi has five children who are studying for free in UNRWA schools. He told Al Jazeera Net that he and his family have no source of livelihood other than the relief aid it provides and from which thousands of families benefit, which the agency describes as “the poorest and most needy” in the sector, the majority of whose population suffers from high levels of poverty. And unemployment as a result of the Israeli siege since 2007.

UNRWA found itself responsible for approximately 2.2 million people, including Gaza residents, refugees and others, following the outbreak of the Israeli war after the Hamas attack.

Estimates of the UN agency and local and international human rights organizations indicate that two million Palestinians were forced to flee their homes as a result of Israeli threats, and the majority of them took refuge in schools affiliated with UNRWA, which bears the brunt of providing relief aid to them and the rest of the population and those displaced in homes and tents.

Hamdi is hosting his sister and her family (5 members) in his humble home in the Shaboura refugee camp in the city of Rafah, after she was displaced with thousands of others during the past few days from the neighboring city of Khan Yunis, where fighting is intensifying as the occupation army continues its ground operation and penetrates deep into the city, its camps and its neighbourhoods.

Since suffering from kidney failure, Hamdi, in his forties, has been unable to work. He wonders, "Where will we go with our families if UNRWA collapses? What will happen to the thousands of people displaced by the war?"

“We are living a black comedy led by the United States of America, which is working today to provide all means not only to protect Israel but to make it capable of victory... What Israel was unable to do, America and the Western community are doing. The latest chapter of this terrorism is the decision to stop funding UNRWA from Western countries.” Different" pic.twitter.com/1kagovZZLb

- Adham Abu Selmiya 🇵🇸 Adham Abu Selmiya (@adham922) January 28, 2024

Scarce aid

In turn, Ahmed Odeh has been residing with his family of 7 people in a shelter center inside an UNRWA school in the city of Rafah since his displacement in the first days of the war from the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip. He says, "Life is black and aid is not enough for us. What if it stopped? We will die of hunger."

Odeh and his family live on a limited amount of water and canned goods that UNRWA distributes to the displaced in its schools, and to hundreds of thousands of others like them who reside in the homes of relatives and friends and in tents and shelter centers outside schools.

According to statements reported by an official UNRWA account through its media advisor Adnan Abu Hasna, the aid received into the Gaza Strip meets only 5 to 7% of the population’s needs.

Over the past two days, Al Jazeera Net has tried to communicate with Abu Hasna and others in UNRWA to comment on the decision to stop funding and its impact on its services provided in Gaza, especially in light of the war, but to no avail.

Last Saturday, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said, “It is shocking to see the suspension of the agency’s funding as a response to the allegations against a small group of employees, especially in light of the measures taken by the UN agency, on which more than two million people depend for their survival.”

He stressed that "these decisions threaten the humanitarian work currently underway in the region, especially in Gaza," and that the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip did not need this additional collective punishment.

"Liquidation of UNRWA"

Al Jazeera Net maintains the names of employees who were included in UNRWA's decision to dismiss them from their jobs based on information provided to it by Israel indicating their alleged involvement in the Hamas attack, and it was noteworthy that there were two female employees among these names.

The employee refused to comment to Al Jazeera Net on the decision to suspend her from work, but circles close to her suggested that the decision was due to posts she made on her Facebook page, the content of which could be interpreted as support for the resistance and the Battle of the “Al-Aqsa Flood.”

UNRWA's decision to terminate the contracts of 12 of its employees was met with Palestinian rejection from official and civil society bodies. The Palestinian Authority stressed that the agency needs support and not a halt to aid, and accused Israel of launching a campaign of incitement to "liquidate the agency."

Israel does not have a good relationship with UNRWA, and over many years it has sought to liquidate its existence by obstructing its work and inciting against it.

In 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for placing Palestinian refugees under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and ending the presence of UNRWA; He considered it to work for the benefit of the Palestinians and perpetuate the refugee issue.

During the current war, UNRWA angered Tel Aviv because of its statements and statements by its officials, accusing the occupation of bombing civilian targets, including its schools and ambulance centers. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said, "His country will seek to prevent UNRWA from working in Gaza after the war."

The head of the International Commission for Supporting the Rights of the Palestinian People, Salah Abdel Ati, placed the decision to freeze and cut funding for UNRWA in the context of “consistent with alleged accusations by individuals regarding the punishment as individual if proven in accordance with the rules of the law, which does not give it any justification to punish the agency or the refugee community.”

He told Al Jazeera Net that the decision of the United States and other Western countries “contributes to the crime of collective punishment,” and makes these countries “partners in the war of starvation, and places them in the category of bias and blind support for the occupation’s secret and declared plans to end the role of UNRWA and its work.”

According to Abdel Ati, this decision affects UNRWA’s ability to carry out its role in providing relief to the people of Gaza, who live in the midst of the horrors of hunger, thirst, disease, and limited aid, and who depend primarily on its aid in light of the ongoing Israeli aggression and genocidal war.

Source: Al Jazeera