Britain to resume funding to UNRWA

• Britain’s new Labour government said it would resume funding to the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA in the first major change in how it will approach the Israel-Palestinian conflict after winning power earlier this month.

• As many as 16 countries pulled funding from the UN agency in January worth $450 million following unproven allegations from Israel that a dozen staff had been involved in the Hamas-led terror attacks on southern Israel on October 7 in which some 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage.

• When the allegations against the agency were first made, Britain joined the US and many others in suspending funding but the US now stands alone in continuing to withhold cash for UNRWA – the chief provider and distributor of aid across the entire Occupied Palestinian Territory.

• The UK will now reportedly provide some $27 million in funding for UNRWA to be spent on food, shelter and other emergency humanitarian supplies in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

• The head of UNRWA welcomed the decision by the United Kingdom to resume funding of the agency at a critical time, as the agency continues to come under harsh and unprecedented attacks.

What is the purpose of UNRWA?

• Created in December 1949, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is a relief and human development agency which supports more than five million registered Palestinian refugees, and their patrilineal descendants, who fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1948 Palestine war as well as those who fled or were expelled during and following the 1967 Six Day war.

• The UNRWA has been providing health, education, relief and social services, as well as emergency humanitarian assistance, across its five fields of operation — Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and the Gaza Strip — since 1950. 

• It also provided relief to Jewish and Arab Palestine refugees inside the State of Israel following the 1948 conflict until the Israeli government took over responsibility for Jewish refugees in 1952.

• In the absence of a solution to the Palestine refugee problem, the UN General Assembly has repeatedly renewed UNRWA’s mandate.

• The refugees and their descendants number about six million, and in Gaza they are the majority of the population. 

• Almost all funding comes from voluntary contributions, and mostly from donor states. The United Nations Secretariat has increased financing for  international staff posts from 158 posts in 2021 to 201 posts in 2022 from its regular budget.

• In 2021, the United States of America was the largest donor with a total contribution of over $338 million across all UNRWA funding portals, followed by Germany (over $176 million). These contributions made up about  46 per cent of the total contributions UNRWA received from government donors and the EU.

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