Canada and Sweden are resuming funding for the main United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees in Gaza, citing the spiraling humanitarian catastrophe there and saying that the agency had taken steps to improve accountability amid accusations that some of its employees had links to Hamas.
The countries were among more than a dozen that suspended payments to the aid organization, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, known as UNRWA, after accusations in January by Israel that a dozen of its 13,000 employees in Gaza had been involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel or their aftermath.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that it was “a serious mistake” for the two countries to restart financing the U.N. agency. “It constitutes tacit consent and encouragement on the part of the governments of Canada and Sweden to continue to ignore the involvement of UNRWA employees in terrorist activity,” the statement said.
UNRWA has argued that Israel has targeted it with a “deliberate and concerted campaign” to undermine its operations when its services are most needed. Warnings of widespread hunger bordering on famine have become more urgent, and signs of desperation are growing as people resort to consuming animal feed or ambushing aid trucks.
In a government statement on Saturday, Sweden said that it would disburse a conditional first payment of some $20 million. It said that UNRWA had agreed to allow independent audits and to strengthen internal oversight.
“In this urgent situation, when the need is so great among the civilian population, it is first and foremost important to save lives,” the statement said.
Canadian officials said on Friday that they had received an interim report from the internal United Nations office investigating the claims, and that the agency had taken immediate steps to improve accountability. The United Nations has also commissioned an external review.
The European Union, one of the largest donors to UNRWA, announced last week that it was substantially increasing funds to the agency, saying that Palestinians were facing terrible conditions and should not be made to pay for Hamas’s crimes. The first tranche of 50 million euros, about $54 million, was scheduled to be disbursed this week.
The United States has said it would wait for the results of U.N. investigations before deciding whether to resume donations. The United States is the agency’s single largest donor, having pledged $344 million in 2022.
Canadian officials said that UNRWA plays a “vital role” in providing humanitarian assistance to Gaza’s 2.2 million civilians, and that other organizations depended on the longstanding agency’s expertise and infrastructure.
The international community has faced increasing pressure to act to alleviate the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Officials with UNRWA have said that without a reversal of donor countries’ suspensions, which cost it about $450 million in funding, the organization would soon run out of reserves.
The United States and other countries announced plans this week to try to get aid into northern Gaza by sea through the Mediterranean coast. In recent weeks, nations have been sending in aid via airdrops attached to parachutes.
Israel has claimed that at least 10 percent of UNRWA’s staff in Gaza is affiliated with Palestinian armed groups and that what it says are employees’ links to Hamas fundamentally compromise the agency. In a proposal for Gaza’s postwar governance last month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel included a call for UNRWA to be closed and replaced “with responsible international aid agencies.”
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s chief, said this week that he had not received any additional information to back up Israel’s accusations after they were initially presented to him in January, but that the agency had immediately terminated the contracts of staff members accused of involvement with the Oct. 7 attacks because of the gravity of the allegation.
Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
