The United States would cut off funding for the foremost U.N. agency that gives aid to Palestinians in Gaza under a spending deal that may soon change into law, according to two people conversant in the plan.
The ban, a part of a large spending bill negotiated by lawmakers and the White House that is expected to clear Congress by this weekend, would create a shortfall of a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of dollars for the agency generally known as UNRWA. This could have devastating consequences for Gazans, who face an acute hunger crisis and displacement in crowded shelters and tent camps.
The move would also put Washington at odds with its Western allies over its response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza amid accusations of infiltration of the agency by Hamas militants.
The suspension is scheduled to run through March 2025 and extends a cut in funding that the White House and lawmakers from each major U.S. parties supported after Israel in January accused no less than 12 UNRWA employees of involvement in the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel led by Hamas . According to people conversant in the negotiations, work is underway to impose a long-term financing ban.
“Not one taxpayer dollar should go to UNRWA following the serious accusations of its members involved in the October 7 attacks,” Sen. James Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a press release to The New York Times.
The U.S. plan has left a few of America’s closest allies scrambling to provide the agency with continued funding.
The lack of U.S. support would make it tougher for the agency to provide food and health services in Gaza. The United States covered most of the agency’s total budget, including $370 million for 2023. Earlier this month, UNRWA had sufficient funds to proceed operations through the end of May, according to Scott Anderson, the agency’s deputy director in the Gaza Strip. .
UNRWA Commissioner General Philppe Lazzarini has expressed concern that U.S. efforts to suspend funding can have a drastic impact on agency services in Gaza, especially education. “I really hope that the United States will continue to show its solidarity,” he said.
The White House appeared to have little hope of eventually restoring funding to UNRWA, which supports Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, once the agency accomplished its investigation and took steps toward reform.
“There is no other organization that has the reach, tentacles and distribution capabilities that UNRWA has in Gaza. It’s just a fact,” said John F. Kirby, – said the spokesman for the White House National Security Council.
“Obviously UNRWA will have to reform because this is simply unacceptable behavior by anyone,” he added.
U.N. officials said they had fired at least nine of the original 12 staffers accused of involvement in the Oct. 7 attack or its aftermath, and two others were dead. António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, who described himself as “appalled by these accusations”, ordered an investigation into the agency and pleaded with countries that had suspended aid payments to reconsider.
Over the past two weeks, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Australia, which suspended UNRWA funding after Israel’s accusations became public in January, said they would extend them. Many other countries, including Germany, UNRWA’s second-biggest sponsor, are expected to make similar announcements in the coming months, according to five European diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to communicate with the media.
On Wednesday, the Saudi-funded humanitarian agency pledged to increase its funding by $40 million, according to a statement.
“We welcome decisions by donor countries to restore funding, but we are not out of the woods,” said Juliette Touma, UNRWA communications director.
But while America’s allies are looking at ways to fund and potentially reform the agency – such as better enforcing its rules that require employees to remain neutral — Washington is looking for other alternatives.
But aid officials question whether other U.N. agencies or smaller humanitarian organizations can distribute large amounts of aid as the war between Israel and Hamas rages.
Israeli officials recently met in Washington with members of Congress and the Biden administration and shared new evidence that UNRWA employees had “deep ties” to militant groups in Gaza, according to an Israeli official familiar with the matter who called the evidence “undeniable.” ”
He said earlier that Israeli officials shared materials with visiting investigators from the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight who’re investigating UNRWA employees’ links to Hamas. He said Israel was committed to ensuring a continued flow of aid to Gaza, but not through UNRWA.
At the starting of the war, the distribution of food aid was mainly supervised by UNRWA. But recently a patchwork of aid agencies, convoys manned by local businessmen and airdrops by foreign governments have change into involved in delivering desperately needed food.
Distribution, especially in the northern Gaza Strip, is being slowed by lawlessness, violence and Israel’s refusal to allow convoys to enter.
At least twice in recent weeks, attempts to distribute food resulted in bloodshed, killing hungry Palestinians looking for aid. More than 100 people were killed in the deadliest event of its kind on February 29 in Gaza City, according to local health authorities, who attributed the deaths to Israeli soldiers firing into the crowd. The Israeli military admitted opening fire but said most of the deaths occurred from people being stomped on or run over by trucks.
On Monday, a U.N.-backed organization that monitors food insecurity warned that “famine is imminent” in Gaza.
Both Republicans and Democrats proposed a World Food Program as a substitute, according to UNRWA supporters who recently visited Congress and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss their private meetings.
However, the World Food Program (WFP) employs fewer than 100 staff in Gaza compared to UNRWA’s 13,000, 3,000 of whom worked during the war.
According to an Israeli official who discussed the latest meetings in Washington and who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the deliberations, Israel has also partnered with WFP and other organizations to play a greater role in Gaza.
But transferring employees from one organization to one other could be complicated, said McGoldrick, the UN coordinator. For example, WFP employees in Gaza generally earn about 3 times greater than their UNRWA counterparts, he said.
While Washington looks for alternatives to UNRWA, other countries have decided to restore their funding based on the agency’s assurances that it is going to improve its worker vetting and ethics enforcement processes.
According to UNRWA officials and European diplomats, these donor countries are looking for additional information from the U.N. office overseeing the investigation into Israel’s allegations, in addition to the results of an independent review led by Catherine Colonna, a former French foreign minister. Ms Colonna is expected to release an interim update on Wednesday and a final report on April 20.
Many European countries want to see whether UNRWA is serious about the investigation, one European diplomat said, adding that evidence of “credible efforts” at reform was essential. “The general impression is that everything is going quite well,” the diplomat said.
Hugh Lovatt, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the pressure in European capitals to restore funding was an acknowledgment that Europe had “overreacted” to the allegations against UNRWA.
Nevertheless, the European Union has stated that future funding for UNRWA shall be depending on the agency allowing EU-appointed experts to audit the organization; increasing staffing in the internal investigations and ethics departments; and persuading staff to sign declarations of conflict of interest, according to written correspondence between UNRWA Commissioner General, Mr Lazzarini, and Oliver Varhelyi, a senior EU official.
UNRWA, according to the correspondence between Mr Lazzarini and Mr Vahelyi, also agreed to provide the Israeli authorities with a listing of its employees, including their Palestinian identification numbers, every three months; confirmation that financial institutions have checked their employees against the list of individuals subject to EU sanctions; and enabling a 3rd party to monitor worker compliance with training on humanitarian and neutrality principles.
Israeli officials had previously complained that UNRWA provided lists of employees only yearly, without their national identification numbers. Access to identification numbers, diplomats say, will likely make it easier for Israel to check its databases for specific UNRWA employees with criminal records.
Johnathan Reiss reporting contributed.
