by Mirret El-Hagrassy
UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, provides humanitarian services and human development for Palestinian refugees, and is considered a lifeline to Palestinians. Previously the largest funder if UNRWA, the United States government terminated its support in UNRWA in January amid accusations that UNRWA employees had participated in the October 7 attack.
Representatives Andre Carson, Pramila Jayapal, and Jan Schakowsky introduced H.R. 9649, the UNRWA Funding Emergency Restoration Act of 2024, on September 18. They were joined by 65 additional House representatives, including Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Jim McGovern, and Stephen Lynch.
UNRWA has a unique role in Gaza, where over two-thirds of the 2.2 million population are refugees. UNRWA had maintained over 300 schools, health care centers, warehouses, and various other civil facilities in Gaza, with over 13,000 employees, almost entirely made up of local Palestinians. There is no organization as deeply integrated into Gaza, with the infrastructure essential to provide humanitarian services, including food, shelter, education, primary care, etc. to the population.
UNRWA was formed in 1952, after the UN decisions that gave international approval for the formation of Israel, and the ensuing Nakba and mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their ancestral homelands. The UNRWA mandate is to serve ‘Palestine refugees’, defined as any person whose “normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict”, and also the descendants of fathers falling under the above definition. UNRWA is also mandated to provide services to people displaced in the region in serious need of continued assistance due to 1967 and its downstream hostilities, although they are not registered Palestine refugees. Israel has been actively trying to dismantle UNRWA for decades, aiming to end the aspirations of Palestine refugees and their descendants from returning to the lands they took over and continue to occupy. Since October 7, UNRWA has been one of the top targets of Israeli aggression and suppression.
Immediately after October 7, the top leadership of Israel made genocidal statements, and indeed launched massive attacks on Gaza in addition to restricting water, food, fuel, and humanitarian aid from Gaza, declaring the populace at large to be guilty, “human animals”. These attacks included targeting civilians, civilian infrastructure, healthcare workers, and aid workers. In January 2024, South Africa argued before the International Court of Justice and Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. On January 13, 2024, the ICJ ruled Israel was committing a plausible genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and ordered Israel to stop all acts of genocide.
On the same date of this ruling, Israel made accusations against 12 UNRWA employees, claiming that they had participated in the October 7 attacks. In that way, and with the full complicity of Western media, Israel switched the world’s attention from its condemnation by the ICJ for plausible genocide to a focus on vilifying UNRWA. despite the lack of evidence to support their claims. Philippe Lazzarrini, commissioner general of UNRWA, fired the 12 employees while they were still investigating the matter but nevertheless, the United States and 17 other countries froze over $430 million of expected funding to the humanitarian agency best capable of saving Palestinians in Gaza undergoing genocide. They did this based on unsubstantiated accusations against 12 out of 13,000 employees previously vetted by Israel. Congress passed a bill prohibiting the US from funding UNRWA through at least March 2025.
Since then, it has been shown that the alleged evidence for UNRWA employee involvement in these attacks was insufficient and/or obtained under torture. All countries except for the U.S. have restored funding to UNRWA, including European Union, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Finland, Germany, Japan, and Sweden. The United States was historically the top donor to UNRWA, and continues to withhold $100 million USD in funding,
To be clear, even if a ceasefire were to be enacted immediately, the direct deaths have been counted at 40,939 thus far, probably a large undercount, and together with indirect deaths using a conservative estimate of 4 indirect deaths to each direct death, it is likely that at least 9.3% of the population of Gaza will have died as a result of this genocide. The U.S. continuing to hold funding UNRWA is likely to accelerate the death toll, with the most vulnerable groups being most affected, including children.
Furthermore, as mentioned above, Israel is specifically targeting aid workers in Gaza and the West Bank (and now in Lebanon), and has killed at least 200 UNRWA staff members in Gaza since October 7. Over 75% of aid workers killed worldwide since October 7 died in Gaza and the West Bank. UN Chief Mr. Haq called for a reminder on the tremendous risks taken by a “huge number” of UNRWA staff for months, “keeping hundreds of thousands of people alive”. Israel has repeatedly attacked UNRWA schools where families, widows and children are sheltering, UNRWA continues to be a major actor in providing food, shelter, health services across 10 primary health centers and up to 100 mobile medical units.
Tens of thousands of people in the U.S. have donated to UNRWA-USA to support UNRWA despite the U.S. government actions, but it remains critical to restore UNRWAs biggest source of funds so that it can continue its essential work. Advocacy in the U.S. has power, and takes root. Tell your representative that you want America to return as UNRWA’s biggest co-sponsor, biggest donor, and to save Palestinian refugees.
Mirret El-Hagrassy, M.D. practices neurological medicine at UMass Memorial Health. She is a member of Doctors Against Genocide and of MAPA’s Gaza Israel Peace Campaign.