Defunding Unrwa is a war against all Palestinians

Defunding the sole UN agency that provides a lifeline for some 5.9 million Palestinians, including a besieged refugee population of over two million in Gaza currently facing a genocide, is egregious and aims to liquidate the Palestinian cause.

Since the United States announced on 26 January that it would suspend its funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa), other countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, Australia, and Germany, have followed suit.

The decision to defund Unrwa followed Israeli allegations that 12 of the agency’s 13,000 staff in Gaza (constituting 0.092 percent of Unrwa's local staff in Gaza) may have been involved in Hamas's Al-Aqsa Flood Operation of 7 October. 

Unrwa is funded almost entirely by voluntary financial contributions. Of the $1.17bn made in total pledges to Unrwa in 2022, the largest contributions came from the US ($343.9m) and Germany ($202m).

As a result of these funding suspensions, Unrwa will lose almost 60 percent of its funding, amid warnings of a rapidly approaching famine due to Israel's genocidal onslaught on the Gaza Strip. 

Read more:  Defunding Unrwa is a war against all Palestinians