UN Secretary-General António Guterres has appealed to governments that suspended their funding to UNRWA to reconsider and ensure the continuation of the agency’s critical operations.
UN News/Ziad Taleb
No other entity has the capacity to provide assistance on the scale necessary to meet the needs of 2.2 million people in the Strip, UNRWA said.
Spread of diseases among children
Since then, the school-turned-shelter has become home to hundreds of displaced Palestinians fleeing the ongoing violence.The school had been turned into a centre for sheltering the displaced following Israeli strikes and bombardment triggered by Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on 7 October that left 1,200 dead and 240 taken hostage.Since the war began, more than 150 UNRWA employees have been killed and dozens of the agency’s headquarters and warehouses destroyed in various parts of the Gaza Strip.
UNRWA provides diverse and integrated services to the displaced in the shelter centre, Mr. Saqr said, the most important of which are relief aid in addition to health, social and psychological services.
Delivering aid while facing multiple threats
Supervisor Inaam Rabeh agreed, emphasizing that the aid supplies that arrive at the school are insufficient.If funding for UNRWA is not resumed, the agency said it will be forced to cease its operations across the region – including Gaza – by the end of February. UNRWA serves 5.9 million Palestine refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.A number of donors suspended their funding to UNRWA last month following Israel’s allegations of the involvement of 12 agency employees in the 7 October attacks on Israel.UN News/Ziad Taleb
Looming funding cuts threaten services
Working to provide health and social services at the Deir Al-Balah centre to people with special needs and the elderly, she warned that dangers were on the rise.Mr. Saqr stressed the urgent need for relief services, noting that the interruption of aid leads to unimaginable suffering in shelters because people depend entirely on the aid provided by UNRWA.With the continued bombing and displacement, which also affects UNRWA employees, the agency’s teams are still focused on providing relief in Gaza.Anaam Rabeh of UNRWA.Learn more about the work of UNRWA here.
