10 Countries Halt UN Palestinian Relief Agency Funding to Support Genocide

On January 26, Israel announced it believed at least 12 employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) may have been involved in some way with the October 7 attack by Hamas on fascist Israel. The agency employed some 13,000 to care for the 2.3 million Palestinians who are refugees and prisoners in their own country. 

Despite the certainty that Israel was making up at least part of the allegations against the UNRWA being complicit in some way regarding the October 7 attack, the United Nations moved as swiftly as it could to eliminate the concern before Israel’s message overtook the news cycle and severely poisoned its relief efforts in Gaza and beyond.

Within hours of Israel’s accusations, UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini had the information and investigated the charges. Nine were identified quickly and fired on the spot. Two others are still being researched as of this writing. One of the twelve is dead. It is not yet known if any of the accusations are true of not. 

In a statement, Lazzarini said, “These shocking allegations come as more than 2 million people in Gaza depend on lifesaving assistance that the Agency has been providing since the war began,” Lazzarini said. “Anyone who betrays the fundamental values of the United Nations also betrays those whom we serve in Gaza, across the region and elsewhere around the world.”

UNRWA employs a lot of people in Gaza and it is impossible for them to know if some of them might be linked to the resistance against Israeli abuse and under current circumstances it is impossible to prove that none of its employees has ever tried to defend Palestinians against Israeli atrocities. So, the accusation is an effective psy-op for Jewish controlled media and the vast network of corrupt politicians, academics and others that Israel has on its payroll or blackmail roster.

The reality is that the attacks of October 7 were primarily against the Israeli military and police who were responsible for abuse against Palestinians. It was a retaliation that had been provoked. Some individuals who may or may not have been involved with Hamas took it upon themselves to kill some non-military targets. Israel itself killed hundreds of its own people and blamed it on Hamas. It is estimated that Hamas killed some 600 people and most of those were legitimate military targets.

Had the attack been carried out in WW II by resistance fighters in occupied France who killed Nazis, they would have been hailed as heroes by the west but as terrorists by the Nazis. Today, the fascists are able to control the narrative in many countries and effectively label the resistance as terrorists. 

Then there is the possibility that Israel actually controls Hamas and the attacks on October 7 were a false flag operation. It is true that Israel knew the attack was being planned and instead of choosing to prevent it or defend against it, the decision was made to instead stand down, switch off surveillance and allow it to happen and then make it worse by added hundreds to the body count. 

While the UNRWA can't take sides and should not be involved militarily, whether or not the accusations against the UNRWA employees are true is somewhat irrelevant. Palestinians have a legal and moral right and obligation to push back against the Zionist occupation and abuse.

The fact that many of the nations withholding funding to UNRWA while still aiding and abetting the genocide, means that this issue has absolutely nothing to do with right or wrong or saving lives but is all about subservience to Israel. The fact that Israel has been able to gain control over so many politicians in other countries and gain support for its genocide should alarm all of humanity and be a major issue. 

Under the excuse of the allegations and the flawed thinking that much of it must have been true to at least a small extent or UNRWA would not have fired so many, so far, a total of ten countries have now announced they were immediately pausing funding for this important relief agency. Among the majors on that list are:

United States. Historically the agency’s largest donor, the U.S. provided $340 million in aid to UNRWA in 2022. State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller announced on January 26 that it has  “temporarily paused additional funding for UNRWA” over the news.

Australia. Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the same day that it would “temporarily pause disbursement of recent funding”.

Canada. International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen said his government has “temporarily paused any additional funding to UNRWA while it undertakes a thorough investigation”.

Finland. Its foreign ministry responded quickly that it was putting all aid to UNRWA on hold.

Germany. The country’s Foreign Ministry said it will put on hold any new funding for the UNRWA.

Italy. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said his country was no longer giving aid to UNRWA, pending an investigation of the charges.

Japan. Foreign Press Secretary Kobayashi Maki from the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in an announcement on January 28 that his country “is extremely concerned about the alleged involvement of UNRWA staff members in the terror attack on Israel on October 7 last year.” In response,” he continued, “Japan has decided to suspend additional funding to UNRWA for the time being while UNRWA conducts an investigation into the matter and considers measures to address the allegations."

Netherlands. The Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Geoffrey van Leeuwen, said his country was “extremely shocked” by Israel’s information “that U.N. money, our money, was used to carry out the October 7 attacks.” It too is immediately suspending all funding for the agency.

Two countries which have expressed concern at the UNRWA charges but still intend to continue funding to UNRWA are Norway and Ireland. They both believe there is a need for due process in the investigation, as well as need for a proportionate response for whatever those at UNRWA may have done rather than cutting off aid entirely.

The timing of the allegations from Israel and the cutting of funding could not come at a worse time. With millions of Palestinians homeless and without access to food, medical care, potable water, or fuel, they are more in need of humanitarian aid than ever before in history. 

This is why, after so many nations reacted so quickly to the Israeli charges that a dozen members of the agency had some links to the invasion by Hamas on October 7, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres responded by pleading with the ten nations which have already pulled funding for the relief agency, plus others still considering it, to reconsider their actions.

“Two million civilians in Gaza depend on critical assistance from UNRWA for their daily survival, but current UNRWA funding will not allow it to meet all needs in February,” he said.

Others are also quickly reminding those who have so rapidly jumped to conclusions about overall complicity of UNRWA in the October 7 attacks, that there are 13,000 UNRWA workers actively attempting to help the Palestinians in Gaza. That makes the alleged dozen maximum less than 0.1% of the total staff present there.

Israel, the architect behind the still unproven charges that those UNRWA were somehow directly involved with planning or more connected with the October 7 attack, said that it would be difficult for it to deliver on a commitment it has to the International Court of Justice now to ensure more humanitarian aid arrives to Palestinians in need in Gaza, on time.

“Without minimal aid to Gaza, we cannot complete the task and finish the war,’ said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a press briefing on January 27.

Other Israeli officials used the allegations to make even stronger statements against the United Nations, whose credibility they have spent years attempting to undermine.

The UNRWA is a “Hamas front” and “literally covers Hamas”, said Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy yesterday.

Yoav Gallant, Israel’s Defense Minister, added his own critique Sunday as well, implicating the entire United Nations in a potential vast conspiracy against Isarel.

“Major changes need to take place so that international efforts, funds and humanitarian initiatives don’t fuel Hamas terrorism and the murder of Israelis,” he said. “Terrorism under the guise of humanitarian work is a disgrace to the UN and the principles it claims to represent.”

Gilad Erdan, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, weighed in as well, leveraging that yesterday was an annual remembrance of the horrors of the original Jewish Holocaust in World War II as way of twisting what happened with the UNRWA into something allegedly much bigger.

“How symbolic that precisely on International Holocaust Remembrance Day it was proven what we have been claiming for years: that UNRWA employees are collaborators of the terrorist organization Hamas,” he said.

Nowhere in any of these comments was there a single mention of the now over 27,000 Palestinians murdered in Gaza by Israeli Defense Forces to date and climbing.

It is also now without question that psychopath Netanyahu and the rest of his government will use these allegations as yet another excuse to ignore the directives the UN International Court of Justice delivered on January 26.