Sweden joins list of nations to resume funding UN agency distributing Palestinian aid
— Another top donor to the UN agency aiding Palestinians said Saturday that 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 organization.
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 Saturday that the ship would depart “within the next 24 hours.” World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés told the Associated Press that 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 that UNRWA had agreed to increased transparency and stricter controls. Sweden will give UNRWA half of the $38 million US funding it promised for this year, with more to come.
Israel had accused 12 of UNRWA’s thousands of employees of participating in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel that killed 1,200 people and took about 250 others hostage. Several countries, including Canada, quickly suspended funding to UNRWA worth about $450 million US, 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 U.S. 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 Oct. 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. “We want better methods.”
The U.S. military said that 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 that two more people, including a two-month-old infant, had died as a result of malnutrition, raising the total dying from hunger in the war to 25. Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said the toll included only people brought to hospitals.
• U.S. President Joe Biden said Saturday that he believes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel” in how he is approaching its war against Hamas in Gaza.
Biden expressed support for Israel’s right to pursue Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack, but said of Netanyahu that “he must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost as a consequence of the actions taken.”
Biden has for months warned that Israel risks losing international support over mounting civilian casualties in Gaza, and the latest remarks in an interview with MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart pointed to the increasingly strained relationship between the two leaders.
Biden said of the death toll in Gaza, “it’s contrary to what Israel stands for. And I think it’s a big mistake.”