Arab Nations Balk at Funding UN Palestinian Aid Agency

The head of the U.N. agency responsible for humanitarian aid for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is having trouble raising funds from Arab states, and only has enough to last through May, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Philippe Lazzarini, chief of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), raised a total of $85 million from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates for this year, the Journal reported. It is far short of the funding lost when the U.S. and other Western countries cut off aid following allegations at least a dozen UNRWA employees took part in Iranian-backed Hamas' terrorist attack Oct. 7 in southern Israel. Last year, the U.S. alone gave the agency more than $422 million.

UNRWA also is facing allegations from Israel that 450 of its employees are part of Hamas and other terror groups, and that Hamas reportedly used a UNRWA school to launch attacks on the Jewish state. Israel also reportedly discovered a subterranean Hamas data center under UNRWA's headquarters in Gaza City.

Lazzarini said if the agency can't scrape up more cash for beyond May, it will be forced to scale back its humanitarian activities in Gaza, where Israel is waging war to eliminate Hamas and rescue the remaining hostages taken during the terrorist attack. The Journal reported UNRWA's activities include feeding and sheltering more than a million people, and that other U.N. agencies and charity groups rely heavily on UNRWA.

"Nothing can entirely fill the gap that the U.S. will leave if the U.S. doesn't resume funding," Tamara Alrifai, a UNRWA spokeswoman, told the Journal. "These emergency measures help us deal with immediate needs. We should be having longer-term, strategic conversations about whether UNRWA is sustainable."

UNRWA began operating in 1950 to give emergency aid to refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that led to the establishment of the Jewish state. It has since grown to run primary and secondary schools and health care centers. UNRWA relies mainly on voluntary donations and not on money from the U.N. general budget, and the Journal reported its annual expenses at $1.4 billion, the bulk of which is used to cover salaries for its 30,000 employees across the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

Saudi Arabia and other Arab states are reluctant to make large donations to Gaza until there is clarity on the area's political future. Israel has stated it will not allow Hamas to have any political control over Gaza, which the terror group has ruled since 2006. The Journal reported Saudi Arabia has been pushing for a two-state solution in which a reformed Palestinian Authority would play a role, something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far ruled out.

"They have their eyes on postwar reconstruction. Footing the bill for UNRWA reinforces the image that the Gulf will always come to the rescue," Bader Al-Saif, an expert on Persian Gulf and Arabian affairs at Kuwait University, told the Journal. "They are certainly not rebuilding if that's not tied to concessions from Israel, and I don't know how that's going to come through in the current climate."