Defunding Gaza's lifeline: How the West is taking part in collective punishment

At the heels of the ICJ court ruling – which fell short of calling a ceasefire in Gaza – a new allegation emerged at the hands of Israel. The IDF alleged UNRWA staffers were involved in the 7 October terrorist attacks. 

The response from the West came at a gushing speed. They declared their funds to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) will be cut. 

There are, at least, three things to consider at the behest of this latest development. 

Timing

On 26 January, the International Court of Justice ruled on six provisional measures ordering Israel to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza, and to prevent and punish those who call for incitement, among other orders. Israel has also been asked to show evidence of following the court's order in one month.

The court however did not order an immediate stop to Israeli military operations in Gaza, nor did it call for a ceasefire — which was the primary ask of South Africa at the court against Israel. 

Many called the ICJ court hearing at least a partial victory for South Africa, because it put Israel under a legal notice, in a manner of speaking. The high-stakes hearing was also called historic, given how it addressed a "genocide" by one party while the said crime was taking place. 

But the fervour of the ICJ ruling was drowned out, almost immediately and completely. IDF's latest allegation – which accuses UNRWA staffers of being involved in the 7 October terrorist attacks – took centre stage on 26 January. So much so that UNRWA donors (including the United States) said they would freeze its funding to the agency on the same day. 

The timing of making these allegations public (an Israeli official told CNN on Friday that Israel shared information about 12 UNRWA staffers both with UNRWA and the US) is curious at best, and calculative at worst. 

On 29 December 2023, The Times of Israel reported on a Foreign Ministry document which would be presented to the Israeli cabinet in future. It was about UNRWA.

It said, "According to the report, the document recommends three stages to the move. The first involves a comprehensive report on alleged UNRWA cooperation with Hamas, which rules Gaza, and the entanglement of the UN body that provides welfare and humanitarian services for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 and 1967 wars and their descendants, with the terror group.

The next stage would see reduced UNRWA operations in the Palestinian enclave, amid a search for a different organization to provide education and welfare services. In the third stage, according to the report, all of UNRWA's duties would be transferred to the body governing Gaza following the war."

This kind of discourse did not begin on 7 October last year, rather it has existed for many decades. In the recent past, for instance, in 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to dissolve UNRWA and merge it with the main UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, according to a CNN report. 

"[UNRWA perpetuates] the narrative of the so-called right of return, whose goal is the elimination of Israel. For these reasons, UNRWA should be shut down," Netanyahu said in 2018, according to CNN. 

In 2018, the US, under the administration of President Donald Trump, ended all funding for the agency at Israel's behest, with the State Department at the time describing the body as "irredeemably flawed." When Joe Biden became president in 2021, he reversed his predecessor's decision and restored UNRWA's funding.

The US has long been the biggest single donor to UNRWA.

More recently, according to CNN, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has suggested that Israel will seek to stop the UN agency (UNRWA) from operating in post-war Gaza, saying it "will not be a part of the day after."

Since its establishment in 1949, UNRWA has been essential in serving Palestinians. It works as the main lifeline for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. 

And since the start of the latest and the bloodiest Israeli military campaign in Gaza, it has been a lifeline for Gaza's Palestinians. In the face of these apocalyptic conditions, the UNRWA is said to be the largest humanitarian actor in Gaza and "2 million people out of about 2.3 million population in Gaza depend on the agency's humanitarian operation," according to UNRWA's Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini. 

Ails of collective punishment 

On 29 January, Reuters reported "The six-page dossier, seen by Reuters, alleges that some 190 UNRWA employees have doubled as Hamas or Islamic Jihad militants. The United Nations has not formally received a copy of the [Israeli] dossier, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Monday." 

Meanwhile, 12 alleged UNRWA employees have been accused of being involved in the 7 October terrorist attacks.

Some 3,000 of UNRWA's core staff out of 13,000 in Gaza continue to report to work despite the war, according to the agency, which also said that it had already terminated work contracts with nine out of the 12 alleged employees. Two of the alleged employees are already dead, and the other alleged name is being investigated. 

But the response still came at full speed. 

At least 12 countries, including the United States and Germany, the two biggest donors, have suspended funding. Spain announced it will not withhold its funding.

According to a 31 January New York Times story, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, stressed on Wednesday that the funding pause for the agency was temporary and praised the agency's work, comments that suggested an appetite could exist among donors to resolve the funding crisis.

"We know that this agency provides lifesaving services under incredibly challenging circumstances in Gaza and it contributes to regional stability and security," Thomas-Greenfield said at a meeting of the UN Security Council, "for this reason, and for the sake of millions of Palestinian civilians who depend on UNRWA's services, it is vital that the UN take quick and decisive action to hold accountable anyone guilty of heinous actions and to strengthen oversight of UNRWA's operations and begin to restore donor confidence."

Those who are proven guilty must be held accountable. But to freeze, even temporarily, funding for an agency which is one of the last ones assisting more than 2 million Gazans, once again exemplifies the very notion of collective punishment. 

In this backdrop of chaos, displacement and destruction, UNRWA, one would assume, is already functioning at its full capacity. Now to be held at gunpoint by donors to "make fundamental changes within" or else, funds will not flow, makes for an even more impossible situation. 

For countries – apart from Israel – to directly play a hand in this collective punishment, is also perhaps telling of Western values. 

Israel's decision to impose a complete siege on Gaza following Hamas' terrorist attack on 7 October 2023 was decried as collective punishment by the UN, international humanitarian organisations and a select few world leaders. 

But the siege did not end. A complete cut of food, medicine, fuel and water and frequent episodes of communication blackouts became a reality for the 2.2 million Gazans. 

UN and Israel 

The UNRWA is separate from the UN's main refugee agency, the UNHCR, and deals only with Palestinian refugees. But why though? 

Jonathan Cook, British journalist and author of three books on Israel-Palestine, pointed to how Israel and its allies insisted on the division from UNHCR back in 1948. 

"Because Israel was afraid of the Palestinians falling under the responsibility of the UNHCR's forerunner, the International Refugee Organisation. The IRO was established in the immediate wake of the Second World War, in large part to cope with the millions of European Jews fleeing Nazi atrocities.

Israel did not want the two cases treated as comparable, because it was pushing hard for Jewish refugees to be settled on lands from which it had just expelled Palestinians," wrote Cook on X.  

Since the late 1940s, UN-Israel relations have evolved. With more and more countries from the Global South and Arab origin becoming member states at the UN, resolutions calling for the UN General Assembly to address the Palestinian issue have soared, wrote Thomas Latschan on Deutsche Welle. Israel has long felt it is treated unjustly by the UN.  

In October 2023, UN Secretary-General António Guterres came under fire for his comments following 7 October. He apparently dared to say "Even wars have rules" and did not emphasise Hamas' atrocities. 

But things were not all that sour between Guterres and Israel. He was awarded the Theodor Herzl Award by the World Jewish Congress in 2020. 

Time will tell what awaits Gazans and the future of Palestine. But as things stand, the latest UNRWA allegations and its consequences only paint a grim picture.