In response to calls for UNRWA’s abolition, the organization’s head declared on Thursday that it is unreasonable to believe it can be simply replaced. “It is a little bit short-sighted to believe that UNRWA can just technically hand over all its activities to other UN agencies or NGOs,” Philippe Lazzarini told journalists at the agency’s headquarters in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem. “It’s an agency (that’s) quite unique because we are… primarily providing government-like services to one of the most destitute communities in the region,” he said. Pointing to education, he said “there is no one except a functioning and administrative state which can provide a direct education to all these grades, at scale”. In Gaza, he added, “we have the biggest footprint, we are providing the entire operation platform of the rest of the humanitarian community”. If UNRWA left Gaza, he said, “it would weaken our collective ability to respond to unprecedented and acute humanitarian needs.”
About 30,000 people are employed by the UN organization, which was founded in 1949, in the occupied Palestinian territories, including 13,000 in Gaza and the neighboring countries of Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Israel has strongly criticized it after alleging that 12 of its workers were involved in the Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7.
Many nations have halted their assistance, despite the UN’s claim that Israel hasn’t given them any proof. The UN has launched both an internal and an independent investigation into the claims. The accusations were “feeding and fuelling anxiety among our staff” and were causing settlers and demonstrators in the occupied West Bank to target UNRWA personnel, Lazzarini said. He said that calls for UNRWA to be dismantled were “a way to address the issue of refugee status without having to go through a political process,” and would be seen by Palestinians as a “betrayal by the international community”. Lazzarini insisted that UNRWA was still a temporary organisation and its aim “remains to hand over all services to a functioning state”. He is due to speak at the UN General Assembly on Monday.
