UNRWA: Key UN Gaza aid agency runs into diplomatic storm - BBC News

UNRWA is a lifeline in Gaza, but several countries have paused aid over claims staff helped attack Israel.

5 days agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingRelated TopicsIsrael-Gaza warImage source, Getty ImagesBy Mark Lowen, in JerusalemBBC NewsIn Gaza, a strip of land fast becoming a wasteland, few international aid bodies can still operate. The United Nations is one of them.

Its Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, was founded in 1949, working in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, caring for the 700,000 Palestinians who were forced or fled from their homes with the creation of the state of Israel.

Now, says the agency's head, the lifesaving assistance on which two million Gazans rely could be about to end, as several Western governments suspend their funding over allegations that some UNRWA staff were involved in the 7 October attacks on Israel.

The mission currently runs shelters for the displaced and distributes the only aid that Israel is allowing in - but it is much more than that. UNRWA provides key infrastructure and tools of daily life that Gaza has sorely lacked through its seemingly endless cycles of violence, siege and impoverishment.

It runs medical and educational facilities, including teacher training centres and almost 300 primary schools - as well as producing the textbooks that educate young Palestinians. In Gaza alone, it employs some 13,000 people. As the biggest UN agency operating in Gaza, it has been key to humanitarian efforts.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68123222?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

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