GENEVA/PARIS: The World Health Organization said on Tuesday the row over funding for the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency was distracting from the humanitarian disaster in Gaza.
It urged governments to keep backing UNRWA, which has seen several key donors suspend funding over Israel’s accusations that several staff were involved in the October 7 Hamas attack.
“Criminal activity can never go unpunished,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told a media briefing in Geneva. “But the discussion ... (is) a distraction from what’s really going on every day, every hour, every minute in Gaza.”
“We appeal to donors not to suspend their funding to UNRWA at this very critical moment. (It) will only hurt the people of Gaza who desperately need support,” said Lindmeier.
“As important as this discussion is, let’s not forget what the real issues are on the ground.”
At least 12 countries have stopped funding UNRWA in recent days.
The agency has fired several employees over Israel’s accusations and promised to investigate the claims, which were not specified.
Lindmeier said UNRWA ran 22 health centers before the war but only six were still operating by mid-January.
“The population is really at the border of famine ... It’s getting worse by the day,” he said. “A malnourished population is very prone to catching diseases and infections.”
Lindmeier said the UNRWA row diverted the world’s attention from the Gaza death toll and a siege “preventing an entire population from access to clean water, food and shelter. It’s a distraction from preventing electricity to come into Gaza.
“It’s also a distraction from the continuous shelling of an entire population — even in areas that just moments before have been designated as safe areas. It’s a distraction from attacking shelters, schools, hospitals.”
Leading NGOs have condemned the halt to UNRWA funding.
“The population faces starvation, looming famine and an outbreak of disease under Israel’s continued indiscriminate bombardment and deliberate deprivation of aid in Gaza,” they said in a statement.
Aid groups pointed to a “worsening humanitarian catastrophe” and “looming famine” in Gaza.
A number of key donors to UNRWA — including the US, Germany and Japan — have announced they are suspending funding to the agency over Israel’s accusations that some of its staff were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
The two dozen top charities, including Oxfam and Save the Children, stressed the UN Relief and Works Agency was the main provider of aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza and the wider Middle East.
“The suspension of funding by donor states will impact life-saving assistance for over two million civilians, over half of whom are children,” the NGOs said in a joint statement.
“The population faces starvation, looming famine and an outbreak of disease under Israel’s continued indiscriminate bombardment and deliberate deprivation of aid in Gaza.”
A total of 152 UNRWA staff had already been killed and 145 of the UN agency’s facilities had been damaged by bombardment, according to the statement, issued by the Norwegian Refugee Council, on behalf of the aid groups. “If the funding suspensions are not reversed, we may see a complete collapse of the already restricted humanitarian response in Gaza,” they said.
