The United States, the main donor to UNRWA, the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Middle East, wants this organization to resume the humanitarian aid work it carries out in Gaza and in the rest of the Palestinian populations in Israel. As State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller explains, “there is no other humanitarian actor in Gaza that can provide food, water and medicine on the scale that UNRWA is doing.”
Miller made these statements minutes before António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, met with donor countries to tackle the crisis in which this organization finds itself after a report released by Israeli intelligence has identified thirteen employees of UNRWA for having collaborated with Hamas during the October 7 massacre. The report details their participation, either by hiding hostages or weapons in their homes, or directly in the attack on some of the kibbutzim assaulted on January 7. “UNRWA is pierced by Hamas,” Benjamin Netanyahu even said on Monday. Israel has a long history of disagreements with this organization.
“We want to see how the work [of UNRWA] continues, that is why it is so important that the United Nations takes this issue seriously,” Miller insisted, “that each person’s responsibilities be refined.”
After the Israeli report on the participation of UNRWA members in the massacre (13 employees out of a total of 13,000 working for the organization) became known, several donor countries decided to stop providing funds. European countries are divided on the issue. The European Union has decided to wait for the United Nations to complete the internal investigation they promised.
The UNRWA crisis has put António Guterres in an increasingly uncomfortable situation. Criticized by Russia and other countries that support him for his position in the Ukraine war, he now sees how Western bloc countries also turn their backs on him for his position in the Gaza conflict.
