Imperialists cut funding from UNRWA

Featured image: Aid truck entering Gaza from Egypt. Source: Al Jazeera

Israeli intelligence has claimed that 12 UNRWA employees took part in the counteroffensive of the 7th of October, and that over 1,200 UNRWA employees have connections to Hamas or the Islamic Jihad. As a reaction, the US, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Netherlands, UK, Italy, Australia, Finland, France, Japan and more have cut their financial support for the organization, which distributes aid to the Palestinians, runs refugee camps and hospitals. UNRWA has announced that they will not be able to work as before starting from February, possibly causing a collapse in their operations in the Gaza strip where there already is not enough water and food, medical supplies and fuel, and where over 26,000 people have been massacred by Israel.

The UNRWA had 13,000 staff in Gaza before October 7th. Hamas is the largest political party in Gaza, so it is not so unusual that some of the employees would be somehow connected to it. In the report, it is also ”revealed” that almost half of the employees of UNRWA in Gaza are related to members of Hamas, which would not be a big surprise considering the population of Gaza is a little over two million. The measures taken by the imperialists therefore are completely unproportionate and amount to collective punishment.

The former head of UNRWA Michael Schmale said that the timing of the publication of the report, only one day after the ICJ ruling which stated that Israel is “plausibly” committing a genocide in Gaza, seems politically motivated. A UN Special Rapporteur pointed out that cutting funding from UNRWA is defying the International Court of Justice which a day before told Israel to allow effective humanitarian aid to Gaza, and commented that if this goes without legal repercussions, it means the demise of the international legal system. Israel has openly declared it will seek to gather international support to halt the operations of the UNRWA, which is the main provider of aid in Gaza.

At the same time, the Israeli protests to block aid to Gaza continue, and Israeli ministers join demonstrators in Jerusalem who demand the reestablishment of illegal Israeli settlements in Gaza and call for the mass-displacement of the Palestinian people.

The incident shows again that the Palestinian people can only rely on their own forces. The imperialists only care about “human rights” as long as the oppressed do not rebel against their oppressors.