UN funding cut: Is it part of Israel's grander plan to expel Palestinians?

The move to block funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees is rooted in dangerous motives, including an attempt to forestall Palestinians’ right to return to their homes in occupied territories, analysts and activists say.

The United States, Britain, and Germany are among the rich countries that have suspended UNRWA funding after Israel alleged that some agency members in Gaza were linked to the Hamas attacks on October 7.

Israeli allegations involve twelve staff members out of 13,000 on UNRWA’s payroll in Gaza, making the decision to suspend funding for the crucial organisation appear like a collective punishment, experts say.

“The Western governments who have announced cutting the funding of UNRWA because of these allegations are complicit in the genocide,” Ines*, Executive Director of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy (PIPD), told TRT World.

“UNRWA is now more needed than ever. So cutting the funds is very clearly part and parcel of contributing to the ongoing genocide of the people in Gaza and a clear plan to get rid of UNRWA in order to try and prevent the right of return of the Palestinian people.”

The UN officials have called on nations to reconsider the suspension of funding for the UNRWA, which is responsible for feeding and giving shelter to millions of Palestinians in refugee camps.

After the war broke out, the majority of Gaza's 2.3 million residents have increasingly depended on UNRWA's assistance. This includes approximately one million people seeking refuge in its facilities from Israeli bombardment.

Israel has in the past criticised UNRWA’s very existence, saying that it entrenches the status of Palestinians as refugees, encouraging their continued hopes of a right of return to the land from which they were driven out by Jewish settlers and Israeli military in 1948 and during subsequent wars.

In 2018, the administration of former US President Donald Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, completely halted financial support for UNRWA, labeling the organisation "irredeemably flawed."

Now, as several Western governments suspend their funding, the agency faces a serious crisis, carrying significant implications for the 5.3 million Palestinian refugees who rely on it for everything from schools to hospitals.

The US is UNRWA’s largest donor and contributed around $340M in 2022, followed by Germany, which provided $162M in the same year.

Both countries have now paused funding amid the Israeli allegations that UNRWA’s staff was directly involved in the October 7 attacks.

This decision was taken after the agency said it launched a probe into 12 staff members who allegedly took part in the abductions and killings on the day. UNRWA sacked nine of those accused, two are missing and one is dead.

The pause in funding by the US and Germany has given credibility to the Israeli government’s argument of dismantling UNRWA’s humanitarian services, Ines said.

Successive Israeli governments have consistently criticised UNRWA's educational content alleging that it perpetuates anti-Israel views.

“Many Palestinian refugees are attending UNRWA schools. The colonial project to erase and annihilate the Palestinian people is carried out through trying to erase the Palestinian culture, to de-educate, de-develop Palestinians. And this is why they have been attacking the UNRWA education system and education textbooks for a long time” Ines said.

In over 100 days of Israeli bombings in Gaza, dozens of schools, including those operated by the UN, have been destroyed, resulting in casualties among students and teachers.

UNRWA confirms that at least 17 of its facilities were directly hit. “A large number of UNRWA facilities were hit and the number of civilians killed cannot just be “collateral damage”. Most of the facilities hit had families in them including older people, parents, and children.

This ongoing assault has also inflicted severe damage on educational infrastructure and subjected thousands of distressed students to mental trauma.

Israel making life difficult

Over 40 percent of schools in Gaza, totaling 288, are under the administration of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), with the remainder either directly operated by the Palestinian Authority or managed privately.

Presently, all schools are closed due to the displacement of over 85 percent of Gaza's population amid an ongoing Israeli ground and air offensive, resulting in a death toll exceeding 26,000 people, including 10,000 children.

Based on 2018 UNRWA data, Gaza had a total of 737 schools, with 9,367 teachers employed in the 288 UNRWA schools.

“The current Israeli regime appears to aim at making life so difficult for Palestinians in Gaza that they are forced to leave and move to other countries. A major obstacle in this plan is the presence and work of UN agencies, particularly the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), in providing humanitarian support to the people of Gaza,” Ashok Swain, Professor & Head of department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, told TRT World.

“The decision to cut off funding to UNRWA contradicts the basic humanitarian laws and principles established since the Second World War. It is crucial for countries in the South and the Middle East to stand up and resist this perilous move, which threatens to render UN agencies ineffective in Gaza and aids the Israeli regime's alleged plan to displace 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza,” Swain said, who is also the UNESCO Chair on International Water Cooperation.

Israel's foreign minister has characterised UNRWA as "the civilian arm of Hamas" and contended that it should not play a role in post-war Gaza.

But this raises the question: if the United Nations is not permitted to assist in rebuilding a devastated territory, what alternative solutions are proposed?

“We have seen individuals, supporters of justice and freedom, who understand the ongoing genocide in Gaza, stepping up and starting to donate individually. But this is not enough,” said PIPD’s Ines.

“Both the Western governments who are cutting funds should be held accountable for their complicity, and other countries should step up now, to make sure UNRWA can continue its operations.”

* Only first name used upon request