Funding returns to UN aid agency in response to ‘devastating’ Gaza situation
Another top donor to the United Nations agency aiding Palestinians has said it would resume funding, weeks after more than a dozen countries halted hundreds of millions of dollars of support in response to Israeli allegations against the organisation.
Sweden’s reversal came as a ship bearing tons of humanitarian aid was preparing to leave Cyprus for Gaza after international donors launched a sea corridor to supply the besieged territory facing widespread hunger after five months of war.
Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides told reporters yesterday the ship would depart “within the next 24 hours”. World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres said all necessary permits, including from Israel, had been secured, and circumstances delaying departure were primarily weather-related.
Sweden’s funding decision followed similar ones by the European Union and Canada as the UN agency known as Unrwa warns that it could collapse and leave Gaza’s already desperate population of more than 2 million people with even less medical and other assistance.
“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is devastating and the needs are acute,” Swedish development minister Johan Forssell said, adding Unrwa had agreed to increased transparency and stricter controls. Sweden will give Unrwa half of the US$38 million ($65.1m) funding it promised for this year, with more to come.
Israel had accused 12 of Unrwa’s thousands of employees of participating in the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel that killed 1200 people and took about 250 others hostage. Countries including the United States quickly suspended funding to Unrwa, worth about US$450m, almost half its budget for the year. The UN has launched investigations, and Unrwa has been agreeing to outside audits to win back donor support.
On the eve of Ramadan, hungry Gaza residents scrambled for packages of food supplies dropped by US and Jordanian military planes — a method of delivery that humanitarian groups call deeply inadequate compared to ground deliveries. But the daily number of aid trucks entering Gaza since the war has been far below the 500 that entered before October 7, because of Israeli restrictions and security issues.
People dashed through devastated Gaza City neighbourhoods as the parachuting aid descended.
“I have orphans, I want to feed them!” one woman cried.
“The issue of aid is brutal and no one accepts it,” said another resident, Momen Mahra, claiming that most airdropped aid falls into the sea.
The US military said its planes airdropped more than 41,000 “meal equivalents” and 23,000 bottles of water into northern Gaza, the hardest part of the enclave to access.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said two more people, including a
2-month-old infant, had died as a result of malnutrition, raising the total dying from hunger in the war to 25. Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said the toll included only people brought to hospitals.
Overall, the ministry said at least 30,878 Palestinians had been killed since the war began. It doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its tallies but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government, and its figures from previous wars have largely matched those of the UN and independent experts.
The opening of the sea delivery corridor, along with the airdrops, show increasing frustration with Gaza’s humanitarian crisis and a new willingness to work around Israeli restrictions.
The sea corridor is backed by the EU, together with the US, the United Arab Emirates and other involved countries. The European Commission has said that UN agencies and the Red Cross will also play a role.
Israel has said it welcomed the maritime corridor but cautioned it would need security checks.
Open Arms founder Oscar Camps has said the ship pulling a barge with 180 tonnes of rice and flour would take two to three days to arrive at an undisclosed location where World Central Kitchen was constructing a pier to receive it.
Biden separately has announced a plan to build a temporary pier in Gaza to help deliver aid, underscoring how the US has to go around Israel, its main Middle East ally and the top recipient of US military aid. Israel accuses Hamas of commandeering some aid deliveries.
US officials said it will likely be weeks before the pier is operational. The executive director of the US arm of medical charity Doctors Without Borders, Avril Benoit, criticised the US plan as a “glaring distraction from the real problem: Israel’s indiscriminate and disproportionate military campaign and punishing siege.”