Israel’s campaign against UNRWA is a threat to regional security

The Israeli-led show trial of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has finally unraveled. Former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna’s independent review, published Monday, into allegations that UNRWA staff participated in the Oct. 7 attacks stated, among other conclusions, that Israeli officials had failed to provide any evidence to support their claims.

The report noted several challenges faced by the agency, including a “lack of communication and information-sharing” with donors on issues such as neutrality and financial budgets. Nonetheless, it also highlighted that UNRWA has “robust” measures in place to ensure its operations adhere to the principles of humanitarian neutrality. These include the comprehensive 2017 UNRWA Neutrality Framework and clear obligations for agency staff. Colonna’s report also comes following an intelligence report out of Washington that Israel’s most stalwart ally had “low confidence” in the Israeli allegations.

This ongoing Israeli campaign against UNRWA is just the latest salvo in an enduring effort to undermine the agency, hamper its operations, and push for its dissolution. Indeed, in February, Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry pre-emptively rejected the Colonna review’s potential findings and recommendations as “cosmetic solutions.” The review itself was prompted by the uproar caused by Israel’s accusations in January triggering 16 of UNRWA’s Western donors, led by the United States, to collectively suspend $440 million in funding.

In recent weeks, most international governments, having realized they were duped by Israel’s vacuous claims, quietly reinstated funding. However, with Washington, once UNRWA’s largest funder by far, still withholding support, as of April 22, UNRWA’s budget shortfall for 2024 stands at $267 million, roughly one-third of the forecasted annual income, according to Dorothée Klaus, Director of UNRWA Affairs in Lebanon. Not only does this jeopardize those in Gaza, but it also threatens the welfare of Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.

For decades, UNRWA has played a pivotal role in providing public services to Palestinian refugees across the region. In Gaza, it is the largest humanitarian organization, with 13,000 staff and 300 installations supporting Palestinians living in the Strip. In Lebanon, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees, 93 percent of whom live below the poverty line, UNRWA acts as a quasi-government entity in 12 refugee camps. The agency provides services such as healthcare, education, water and waste management, cash assistance, and employment opportunities.

The agency underwent a severe austerity program following the Trump administration’s cuts in 2018, which were largely seen as being at Israel’s behest. Budgets were “cut down to the bone,” according to Klaus. She added that with current funding cuts, UNRWA will only be able to sustain core operations until the end of June, with the agency’s Lebanon office already implementing a 40 percent reduction in cash assistance for vulnerable groups.

In calling for UNRWA to implement reforms as a precursor to having its funds reinstated, Western nations have further enhanced Israel’s stranglehold over the agency’s operations. The EU reinstated €50 million to UNRWA while withholding a further €32 million contingent on the completion of the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) investigation and the implementation of various reforms.

Israel has, in turn, sought to undermine the OIOS investigation. “The cooperation of the Israeli authorities, who made these allegations, will be critical to the investigation’s success,” according to a statement by the UN Secretary-General. Still, a UN spokesperson confirmed that Israel had not provided the agency with substantiating evidence for its allegations, while influential pro-Israel entities, most notably UN Watch, have voraciously attacked the OIOS investigation’s credibility.

Israeli leaders have long viewed UNRWA as a threat, based on the agency’s mandate, which affirms the Palestinian "right of return." This mandate considers all descendants of Palestinian refugees from 1948 as refugees and therefore eligible for return. The agency officially remains "temporary" until such time a political solution sees this right fulfilled, at which point UNRWA can be dissolved.

In March, in an attempt to usurp this mandate, Israel proposed a new agency to replace UNRWA and manage large-scale aid deliveries into Gaza. At the same time, Washington is now redirecting financial aid for Gaza and the West Bank from UNRWA to USAID, Washington’s primary apparatus for overseas aid. “This is armchair humanitarianism,” said Chris Gunness, UNRWA’s Chief Spokesperson from 2007 to 2020. “It will be impossible to rebuild the bureaucracy of UNRWA quickly enough.” Indeed, during such time, Palestinian refugees would be left without a comparable safety net during a period of unparalleled vulnerability.

Small comfort may be found in the handful of international actors holding Western governments to account for their decisions. In the UK, a law firm is challenging the British government’s cessation of UNRWA funding on multiple grounds, including the violation of international obligations and undermining internal government frameworks. Nicaragua is also presenting a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) charging Germany with “facilitating the commission of genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza, citing Germany’s initial decision to defund UNRWA. The donor countries’ coordinated announcements of their funding cuts for UNRWA in January came just two days after the ICJ ordered “the unhindered provision at scale by all concerned of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance” to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

As Western donors stepped back, Arab states made only paltry offerings, continuing a trend, dating back to 2018, in which Gulf countries dramatically reduced their UNRWA funding. Arab states are no doubt aware — and Western states need to realize — that should UNRWA buckle, the onus of providing basic services for the 5.9 million Palestinian refugees relying on UNRWA services will fall squarely on host nations. That scenario would delight Israel, as it hastens to normalize the 75-year refugee problem, fray the social fabric of its enemies, and deal a hard blow to Palestinians’ right to return.

To prevent this from happening, UNRWA needs sustained and predictable multi-year financial support, accompanied by an immediate short-term injection of additional funds, to address the near-apocalyptic situation in Gaza, and to continue supporting millions of Palestinian refugees dispersed throughout the region. Western policymakers must acknowledge how adjusting their funding at Israel’s bidding exacerbates Gaza’s humanitarian crisis while risking further instability in the region. To regain credibility, they must also hold Israel accountable for its wanton campaign against the Palestinian relief agency. Short of this, Western policymakers should be prepared to face accountability for their complicity in the ongoing crimes, which many observers, including Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, qualify as genocide.

Sami Halabi is Editor-in-Chief of the progressive policy institute Badil.

Leonora Monson, Research Analyst at Badil, contributed reporting to this op-ed.