UNRWA: UN Gaza aid agency faces diplomatic challenges

In Gaza, a small area of land is being depleted and harmed, with only a handful of international aid organizations able to provide assistance.- They are joined by the United Nations.

The Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, started in 1949. It helps Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. It takes care of 700,000 Palestinians who had to leave their homes when Israel was created.

The person in charge of the agency said that the help that two million people in Gaza depend on might stop because some Western governments are stopping their funding. They are doing this because they think some UNRWA staff were part of the attacks on Israel on 7th October.

The mission runs shelters for people who have been forced to leave their homes and gives out the aid that Israel allows. But it also does other important things. UNRWA gives Gaza important things like buildings and everyday items that it has really needed because there has been a lot of fighting, blockades, and poverty for a long time.

It runs hospitals and schools, including places where teachers are trained, and almost 300 elementary schools. It also makes the books that teach young Palestinians. In Gaza, it gives jobs to 13,000 people. As the largest UN organization working in Gaza, it has been very important in helping people in need.

And it has also become something that politicians argue about and use for their own gain over the years. Israel doesn’t like that it exists because it makes Palestinians feel like they can still return to the land they were forced to leave in 1948.

A list of the 10 countries that gave the most money to Unrwa in 2022, with the United States in first place. In that year, it gave away $343. 9 million (£270 million).

The situation of refugees is very important in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Many Palestinians have a dream of going back to the land of historic Palestine, which is now in Israel.
‘Hate and intolerance’ mean disliking and not accepting others who are different from you.

Additionally, Israeli leaders have criticized the agency’s education and books because they believe they promote anti-Israel beliefs.

In 2022, IMPACT-se, a group in Israel, said that UNRWA’s school books told students that Israel was trying to erase Palestinian culture, steal and change their history, and eliminate the cultural history of Jerusalem. They also said that the UNRWA promoted hate and intolerance and was not neutral.

The European Commission found bad and violent material in the schoolbooks that promoted hate against Jewish people. The European Parliament keeps saying that the European Union should only give money to the Palestinian Authority if they stop including harmful material. UNRWA says that reports about its school books were wrong and that most of the books mentioned were not used in its schools.

In 2018, Donald Trump’s administration, who strongly supports Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stopped giving money to UNRWA because they thought it had too many problems and couldn’t be fixed.

Now, because some Western governments have stopped giving money, the agency could be in big trouble again. This could affect the 5. 3 million Palestinian refugees who are helped by the agency. The US is the biggest donor, giving around $340 million in 2022. Germany has stopped giving money too. They have sent $162 million that year.

Israel has been saying for a long time that some parts of the UN are unfair, against Jewish people, and even worse. The government is using this chance to improve its argument and change the focus, as it is getting a lot of criticism for the war in Gaza.

Israel’s friends in the West can use this opportunity to show they support Israel, but also want its government to stop the offensive.

Even though the money has been stopped, the White House National Security Adviser John Kirby made sure to say that the actions of a few staff members should not make the whole agency look bad. He also said the agency has helped save thousands of lives in Gaza. “They do very important jobs. ”

Israel’s foreign minister said that UNRWA is linked to Hamas and should not help rebuild Gaza after the conflict. This raises the question: If the United Nations can’t help, then who will.