Aid Group Calls Halts in Funding for UNRWA ‘Reckless’

Aid groups working in Gaza expressed dismay at the decision by some donor nations to suspend funding to the main U.N. agency operating in the territory, calling the move “reckless” at a moment when the humanitarian crisis there is rapidly getting worse.

The United States and at least eight other countries said in recent days that they were halting funding for the agency, known by the acronym UNRWA, after Israel presented allegations that a dozen of its employees had played a role in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack or its aftermath. The attacks left at least 1,200 people dead and about 240 taken hostage, according to Israeli estimates.

Donations from three of the countries that paused funding — the United States, Germany and Japan — made up nearly half of all contributions to the agency in 2022, according to UNRWA.

António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, is expected to meet with major donor nations on Tuesday in New York to urge them to keep the agency afloat, according to his spokesman. UNRWA’s leaders have warned that it does not have a financial reserve and could run out of money to pay its staff within weeks if donors withhold funding.

The European Union, the third-largest donor to UNRWA after the United States and Germany, said on Monday that it was not suspending funding, but that it would make decisions about future donations based on the outcome of a U.N. investigation into Israel’s allegations. The U.N. internal oversight office, the body’s highest investigative authority, is looking into the allegations about the 12 UNRWA staff members, but no timeline for the investigation has been publicly announced.

Twenty aid organizations, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam and Save the Children, said in a joint statement on Monday that UNRWA’s role in Gaza as the largest humanitarian agency was irreplaceable, and that the suspension in funding could result in a “complete collapse” of the aid response there.