The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinians reiterated on Tuesday his belief that defunding and dismantling his agency would be “shortsighted.”
Phillip Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, has issued repeated warnings about the impacts of reducing its funding would have on Palestinians during the war, though many foreign governments, the United States included, have paused their funding due to allegations a dozen employees participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel.
“I have talked to the member states about all these calls to have UNRWA dismantled, to be terminated,” Lazzarini said after meeting member states at the U.N. in Geneva. “I have warned about the impact. I have said that these calls are shortsighted.”
Last weekend, Israel’s military announced it had located a subterranean Hamas data center directly underneath the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City, of which Lazzarini said the U.N. was unaware.
“UNRWA did not know what is under its headquarters in Gaza,” he said on X.
Lazzarini and other UNRWA defenders argue that only a dozen employees, of roughly 30,000, were allegedly implicated and said that Palestinians affected by the war are in dire need of resources often provided by UNRWA. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said about 27,000 people have been killed in the war, though that number does not distinguish between civilians and combatants and is nearly impossible to verify. An overwhelming majority of Palestinians have been displaced from their homes as well.
Israeli leaders have long accused UNRWA of aiding Hamas, the governing body of the Gaza Strip and a U.S.-designated terrorist group, though the allegations have taken on new significance following the Oct. 7 terrorist attack that left roughly 1,200 people dead.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced about a week ago that Catherine Colonna, the former minister of foreign affairs of France, will lead an independent review of UNRWA. The review is set to begin on Wednesday, and investigators are expected to submit a preliminary report to Guterres by late March.
The U.S. has temporarily halted its funding due to these concerns, but officials continue to support its long-term sustainment.
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“No one else can play the role that UNRWA’s been playing, certainly not in the near term. No one has the reach, the capacity, the structure to do what UNRWA’s been doing. And from our perspective, it’s important — more than important; imperative — that that role continues,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month.
While the U.S. has not verified the Israelis’ claims that UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7 attack, Blinken said the evidence is “highly credible.”
