Israel has long sought to undermine UNRWA - Australia’s heartless suspension of funding should be lifted
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is the main provider of social and support services to almost 6 million refugees displaced across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine.
No entity other than UNRWA has a fraction of the infrastructure, outreach, capacity or knowledge required to provide the essential services required by those refugees. Of this, there is no doubt.
Withholding UNRWA support to Palestinian refugees, comprised mostly of women and children, is a catastrophe unfolding. Particularly so for those starving in Gaza, many of whom are jam-packed into UNRWA facilities, seeking shelter from the ongoing Israeli onslaught.
Yet countries providing 60% of UNRWA’s funding, including Australia, have withheld support since Israeli allegations in late January sought to link 12 of UNRWA’s 35,000 employees to the events of 7 October.
The funding freeze places even more pressure on the cash-strapped organisation and its ability to provide services.
“The abhorrent alleged acts of these staff members must have consequences,” the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said. “But the tens of thousands of men and women who work for UNRWA, many in some of the most dangerous situations for humanitarian workers, should not be penalised. The dire needs of the desperate populations they serve must be met.”
The international court of justice (ICJ) on 26 January indicated it believed there was a credible risk of genocide in Gaza. It also required Israel to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance in Gaza”.
The consequences of Israel’s allegations against UNRWA and its staff are diametrically opposed to this provisional measure imposed by the ICJ.
UNRWA was established in 1949 to support Palestinians dispossessed of their homeland amidst the violence that gave birth to Israel. UNRWA’s mandate under UN resolution 194 will expire only after a just and acceptable solution to the status of Palestinian refugees is achieved.
It is UNRWA’s very existence, not the potential that a handful of its employees might be Hamas-linked, that challenges the rhetoric of Israel’s selfrighteous governments. Little wonder those governments have long sought to undermine UNRWA.
Israel’s acceptance into the global community of the UN was contin
gent on a commitment to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their lands. The ongoing failure to comply with this commitment festers at the political heart of the Israeli state. UNRWA is a salve to the symptoms of Israel’s sickening non-compliance with its obligations to the global community and to the Palestinians it continues to displace.
Australia’s government is all too familiar with Israel’s duplicity in linking aid agencies to Hamas. In 2016, Israel accused the head of World Vision in Palestine of diverting Australian funding to Hamas. In response, Australia ceased that funding. An Australian government investigation found no evidence to support Israel’s allegations. In 2018, Australia briefly suspended funding for APHEDA following similarly baseless Israeli claims.
Yet despite Australia’s ongoing annual evaluations endorsing every aspect of UNRWA’s operations, once again the Australian government is suspending funding at the instigation of Israel.
It is a heartless act, suspending support for the only agency with capacity to deliver aid and other services to the millions in Gaza. Especially so in the context of the traumatically higher risks of disease and starvation while Israel’s onslaught continues. It is cynical too, given that the same state driving the interruption of UNRWA’s aid delivery is that whose actions have brought Gaza to these desperate straits.
At Israel’s behest, the Australian government is withholding support for refugees trapped in Gaza, despite acknowledging that UNRWA and the UN are more than complying with their obligations to follow up on Israel’s evidence. Traumatising Palestinians in Gaza this way – denying essential support to millions in response to unproven allegations against a handful of UNRWA employees – could be considered collective punishment.
A resumption of Australian funding would help ameliorate the hunger and suffering of the innocent, terrorised and traumatised children of Gaza. It would remind and reassure the suffering and the abused that the world has not abandoned them.
We hope Australia’s government will soon return to the humanitarian posture for which it and Australians are so well known and respected around the world. Australia has always been generous with its support for Palestine.
On behalf of all Palestinians, I most gratefully and humbly thank Australia for its support, past, present and future. In so doing I join with Guterres in calling on Australia to publicly acknowledge its trust in UNRWA and immediately reinstate the disbursement of funding.
The time for distractions is over. Israel will soon enough be called to account for its transgressions against humanity.
More immediately pressing, the children of Gaza and their desperate parents, living in fear for their lives, need your help to survive.
Izzat Abdulhadi is ambassador of the state of Palestine and head of the general delegation of Palestine