The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which is no longer receiving US funding, on Thursday asked other donor nations for more money, warning that its operations could suffer without a cash infusion.
“We run week by week, month by month. I know that as of today, we will be able to process our salaries in November, but have no idea if or no visibility if we will be able to process our salaries in December,” chief Philippe Lazzarini told a press conference.
Israel has barred UNRWA from operating on its soil after accusing some of its employees of participating in the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, which triggered the bloody conflict in Gaza.
Following those allegations, the United States — historically the agency’s biggest donor — suspended its support.
In the wake of Israel’s decision, UNRWA was forced to repatriate its international staff from Gaza and the West Bank, limiting its food aid distribution abilities.
But it still employs 12,000 people in the Palestinian territories, and its services are vital to Palestinians, Lazzarini insisted.
“About 75,000 people were sheltered in 100 of our premises across the Gaza Strip,” he told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York.
“We have, over the last two years, provided more than 15 million primary health consultations. Today, the average is about 14,000 a day,” he added, also noting the agency’s joint vaccination campaign with UNICEF and the World Health Organization.
UNRWA predicts that its budget shortfall between the last quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026 will be about $200 million.
“Unlike in previous years, the projected income in the first quarter of 2026 is too low to absorb a large deficit from 2025,” Lazzarini said.
“In the absence of a significant influx of new funding, the delivery of critical services to millions of Palestine refugees across the region will be compromised.”
While US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said UNRWA will have no role in postwar Gaza, Lazzarini noted that since a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took hold, “we have expanded our services.”
UN agency for Palestinian refugees asks for more funding
https://arab.news/24r6g
UN agency for Palestinian refugees asks for more funding
- UNRWA employs 12,000 people in the Palestinian territories, and its services are vital to Palestinians
- US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said UNRWA will have no role in postwar Gaza
Israel to reopen crossing with Jordan to Gaza aid trucks Wednesday: Israeli official
- “All aid trucks destined for the Gaza Strip will proceed under escort and security ,” the official added
- Israel closed the crossing after a Jordanian truck driver shot dead an Israeli soldier and a reserve officer at the border in September
JERUSALEM: Israel will reopen the crossing on the Israeli-controlled border between Jordan and the occupied West Bank to humanitarian aid trucks destined for Gaza for the first time since late September, an Israeli official said on Tuesday.
“Following the understandings and a directive of the political echelon, starting tomorrow (Wednesday) the transfer of goods and aid from Jordan to the area of Judea and Samaria and to the Gaza Strip will be permitted through the Allenby Crossing,” an Israeli official said in a statement, using the Israeli Biblical term for the West Bank.
“All aid trucks destined for the Gaza Strip will proceed under escort and security, following a thorough security inspection,” the official added.
Israel closed the crossing, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, after a Jordanian truck driver shot dead an Israeli soldier and a reserve officer at the border in September.
The crossing in the Jordan Valley reopened to travelers a few days later, but not to humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip, devastated by more than two years of war.
Since the closure at Allenby, Jordan said it had been able to send some aid to Gaza via the Sheikh Hussein crossing, north of the West Bank.
The Allenby crossing is the only international gateway for Palestinians from the West Bank that does not require entering Israel, which has occupied the territory since 1967.
Tzav 9, an extremist Israeli right-wing activist group seeking to halt any aid arriving in Gaza so long as Israeli hostages are held in the Palestinian territory, condemned Tuesday’s announcement.
“Hamas is still on its feet and acts every day against our fighters, and the government of Israel continues to send supply trucks and treats directly to the vile murderers who murdered, beheaded, and raped on October 7,” the US-sanctioned group said in a statement.
Of the 251 people taken hostage during Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war in Gaza, all but the remains of Israeli Ran Gvili have been handed over.
Under the terms of the US-brokered ceasefire deal that entered into force on October 10, Hamas committed to returning all living and deceased hostages.
