The agency, which plays a key role in the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, has received an influx of private donations but not enough to make up for the loss of international funding.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the main aid agency in Gaza, is set to lose $65 million by the end of February as donors’ funding cuts begin to kick in, according to internal accounting documents reviewed by The New York Times.
At least 18 states or institutions, including many of the agency’s biggest funders, announced they were suspending their donations to the agency, known as UNRWA, after accusations emerged last month that several employees participated in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
I understand not wanting to fund terrorists. Whether the number of terrorists in UNRWA justifies cutting off support or not is moot. We've done it.
But desperate people with no hope are easy recruits for terrorist organizations. If you don't trust UNRWA, you can't just cut off aid to the region and wipe the dust from your hands like you fixed something. It much be replaced with something.
Caring for the people in need in Gaza is not charity. It's self defense. It is an investment in peace. Every nickel we saved in UNRWA funding is 10 dollars in war and rebuilding we have to spend later.
Funding UNRWA is the primary factor perpetuating this conflict. I agree that aid should come, ideally from some neutral unbiased side, but funding UNRWA is the opposite of an investment in peace
How is UNRWA perpetuating anything? The conflict isn't ending because Israel doesn't want Palestine to have a state. They've been pretty clear about that.
The countries that cut the funding after the ICJ ordered to provide humanitarian aid to the 1.5 refugees - they are now complicit in the coming genocide.
They always scream when Israeli is accused of war crimes that we should wait for an investigation. But when the Israeli regime that has been shown to lie incessantly these past months accuses UNRWA - and on the same day of the ICJ ruling, they immediately hop to.
It is just disgusting. And for the first time in my life I'm deeply ashamed of my country.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the main aid agency in Gaza, is set to lose $65 million by the end of February as donors’ funding cuts begin to kick in, according to internal accounting documents reviewed by The New York Times.
UNRWA’s operation plays a critical role in the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
More than 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.2 million people have been displaced by the war, and more than half of the population are now sheltering in repurposed schools and centers run by the agency.
UNRWA also oversees the distribution of the meager supplies of aid that arrive each day to Gaza by truck.
Already, aid agencies are warning of famine amid profound food shortages and the collapse of the health care system.
Since donor states began suspending their funds, the agency has received an unusually high number of private donations from individual citizens seeking to fill the void.
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