Germany and other countries want to suspend funding for the UN aid agency in Gaza. Were employees involved in Hamas terrorism?

Urgently needed: Palestinians await UNRWA deliveries in the border town of Rafah on January 4 Photo: Abed Zagout/Anadolu Agency/Picture Alliance

RAMALLAH taz | There are serious accusations leveled against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA). Israel said some UNRWA personnel were involved in the October 7 Hamas attack. In the attack by the Islamist terrorist organization on Israeli towns and a music festival, some 1,200 people died and some 250 were kidnapped in the Gaza Strip. Israel did not provide any specific information on how UNRWA employees participated in the attack.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said UNRWA should be replaced once the war in Gaza ends and accused the UN agency of having ties to Hamas. He did not provide any evidence of the allegations. Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, was even more critical. The United Nations would be used as a weapon to deny Israel's right to exist and exterminate its population.

Independent and internal UN investigations are now being prepared to investigate the allegations. Until then, ten countries, including Germany and the US, want to freeze their payments to the aid organisation. “Until the clarification is completed, Germany, in coordination with other donor countries, will temporarily not approve new funds for UNRWA in Gaza,” the Foreign Ministry and the Federal Ministry of Development wrote. Saturday night in a joint statement on X, formerly Twitter.

There are currently no new commitments for further funding. Germany is considered the second largest donor to UNRWA after the United States. In 2023, around €83 million flowed from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to UNRWA in the Gaza Strip. According to the ministry, most of the food was imported and distributed. In total, the federal government has donated more than 200 million euros to the UN humanitarian organization.

It is not the first time that the humanitarian organization has been criticized

UNRWA serves more than two-thirds of Gaza's 2.3 million people and is responsible for nearly 6 million Palestinian refugees in three countries and the Palestinian territories. Nearly 287,000 children studied in its 183 schools in the Gaza Strip before the war. The Foreign Ministry calls the aid organization's role in providing basic services to the Palestinian population “vital.” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said Saturday that the decision by the ten countries would threaten the aid agency's humanitarian work in the region. “Palestinians in Gaza did not need this new form of collective punishment,” wrote in X and asked countries to reconsider their decision.

On Friday, the humanitarian organization announced that it had fired the affected employees and launched an investigation. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said those involved would also be prosecuted. Around 13,000 people work for UNRWA in Gaza. It is unclear how many employees are accused of participating in the Hamas attack. Some media reports initially said there were twelve.

This is not the first time the United Nations aid agency has come under fire. In an analysis of textbooks used in UNRWA schools, the Israeli human rights organization IMPACT accuses the humanitarian organization of promoting anti-Semitism, martyrdom and violence and of denying Israel its right to exist. This “indoctrination” made the October 7 attack possible, says the NGO's executive director, Arik Agassi. The latest accusations are therefore not surprising. “The collaboration between UNRWA and Hamas is not new,” he says. Some UNRWA employees have also been members of Hamas's military wing in the past.

The allegations cannot be independently verified at this time. A request for comment to UNRWA has so far not received a response. In the past, however, the charity has called reports of criticism of its school supplies inaccurate and misleading. The school books also came from the respective host country. UNRWA chief Lazzarini wrote on Saturday that the aid agency was sending the list of all its employees to the respective host countries, including Israel. The agency was never aware of any concerns about employees.

Warning of dire humanitarian consequences

Kelsey Norman, a researcher at Rice University in the United States, has examined the situation of refugees in the Middle East. She considers the decision of the ten countries very critical: the United States, Germany, France, Great Britain, Switzerland, Finland, Holland, Canada, Australia and Italy. “The humanitarian situation [in Gaza] “It has never been more alarming, and cutting future funding to UNRWA at this time will have dire consequences for its already overstretched and underfunded operations.” Although ostensibly apolitical as a UN agency, the agency has been politicized in the past, both by and by Palestinians. like Israel and donor countries, says Norman. However, making their work financially difficult is not the solution, as management has already taken countermeasures.

The aid organization currently plays a central role in humanitarian assistance in the Gaza Strip. According to UNRWA chief Lazzarini, it would be “immensely irresponsible to punish an agency and an entire community based on accusations against some people, especially in times of war, displacement and political crises in the region.”