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More countries cut funding to UNRWA over allegations of involvement with Oct. 7 attack, as aid agency warns of impending famine
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A growing number of countries has suspended funding to the main United Nations agency aiding Palestinians in the wake of allegations that a number of its staffers were involved in Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre in Israel.
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, known as UNRWA, protested the cuts, saying that they were accelerating an oncoming famine in the Gaza Strip. The agency was founded to administer relief to Palestinian refugees and their descendants and is the main provider of aid in Gaza, where it employs about 12,000 people from a total staff of 30,000.
The United States and European Union have announced that they are suspending new funding for UNRWA, in addition to Japan, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and other countries.
The cuts follow reports that the agency’s staffers participated in the Oct. 7 attack, in which Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 Israelis and took some 250 hostage, sparking the current war. The Wall Street Journal cited intelligence sources who said ties between Hamas and the agency run deeper than previously known, with 10% of UNRWA staffers implicated in the activities of Hamas. UNRWA last week fired 12 staffers after Israel shared evidence that they were involved in the massacre.
Israel has long accused UNRWA of complicity in Hamas’ malign activities. UNRWA staff have said Hamas has stashed weaponry in its schools, and Israel has said Hamas tunnels run underneath UNRWA facilities.
UNRWA’s commissioner general, Philip Lazzarini, said the cuts were threatening the “primary international agency” active in Gaza, nearly four months into the Israel-Hamas war that has devastated much of the strip.
“Many are hungry as the clock is ticking towards a looming famine,” Lazzarini said in a statement. International health agencies say the 2.3 million people of Gaza, most of whom have been displaced by the war, are facing starvation.
“The Agency runs shelters for over 1 million people and provides food and primary healthcare even at the height of the hostilities,” Lazzarini said.
Other top U.N. officials, including Secretary General António Guterres and World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, joined in expressing alarm at what the cuts will mean.
“The abhorrent alleged acts of these staff members must have consequences. But the tens of thousands of men and women who work for UNRWA, many in some of the most dangerous situations for humanitarian workers, should not be penalized,” Guterres said. “The dire needs of the desperate populations they serve must be met.”
It’s not clear how much the cuts from the group of nations will affect the agency, but the United States alone provides a third of UNRWA’s funding. A number of nations, including Ireland and Norway, said they would continue funding the agency.
“We must distinguish between what individuals may have done and what UNRWA stands for,” Espen Barth Eide, the Norwegian foreign minister, said in a statement. “The people of Gaza urgently need humanitarian assistance and must not pay the price for the actions of others.”
The Wall Street Journal reviewed the intelligence reports the United States received from Israel. The reports said that 1,200 of the agency’s 12,000 employees in Gaza have ties to Hamas, including 23% of its male employees. The Journal did not say which countries aside from Israel provided intelligence.
Of the 12 fired employees, at least two were involved in kidnappings, another two were tracked to the sites of massacres, and others provided logistical support, the intelligence said.
More than 26,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched counterstrikes following Hamas’ attack, including thousands of children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry. Israel does not dispute those numbers, and says about a third are combatants. UBNRWA says that 152 of its staffers have been killed.
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UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire
Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
The U.N. Security Council met on Sunday to discuss US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East.
It was not immediately clear when it could be put to a vote. The three countries circulated the draft text, said diplomats, and asked members to share their comments by Monday evening. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to pass.
The US is likely to oppose the draft resolution, seen by Reuters, which also condemns attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and facilities. The text does not name the United States or Israel.
“The bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States marks a perilous turn in a region that is already reeling,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Sunday. “We now risk descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation.”
“We must act – immediately and decisively – to halt the fighting and return to serious, sustained negotiations on the Iran nuclear program,” Guterres said.
The world awaited Iran’s response on Sunday after President Donald Trump said the US had “obliterated” Tehran’s key nuclear sites, joining Israel in the biggest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.
U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that while craters were visible at Iran’s enrichment site buried into a mountain at Fordow, “no one – including the IAEA – is in a position to assess the underground damage.”
Grossi said entrances to tunnels used for the storage of enriched material appear to have been hit at Iran’s sprawling Isfahan nuclear complex, while the fuel enrichment plant at Natanz has been struck again.
“Iran has informed the IAEA there has been no increase in off-site radiation levels at all three sites,” said Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran requested the U.N. Security Council meeting, calling on the 15-member body “to address this blatant and unlawful act of aggression, to condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
Israel‘s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement on Sunday that the U.S. and Israel “do not deserve any condemnation, but rather an expression of appreciation and gratitude for making the world a safer place.”
Danon told reporters before the council meeting that it was still early when it came to assessing the impact of the U.S. strikes. When asked if Israel was pursuing regime change in Iran, Danon said: “That’s for the Iranian people to decide, not for us.”
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Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting
FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
Israel has rejected a European Union report saying it may be breaching human rights obligations in Gaza and the West Bank as a “moral and methodological failure,” according to a document seen by Reuters on Sunday.
The note, sent to EU officials ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, said the report by the bloc’s diplomatic service failed to consider Israel’s challenges and was based on inaccurate information.
“The Foreign Ministry of the State of Israel rejects the document … and finds it to be a complete moral and methodological failure,” the note said, adding that it should be dismissed entirely.
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Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’
FILE PHOTO: Pope Leo XIV holds a Jubilee audience on the occasion of the Jubilee of Sport, at St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican June 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo
Pope Leo on Sunday said the international community must strive to avoid war that risks opening an “irreparable abyss,” and that diplomacy should take the place of conflict.
US forces struck Iran’s three main nuclear sites overnight, joining an Israeli assault in a major new escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.
“Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility: to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Pope Leo said during his weekly prayer with pilgrims.
“No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, the stolen future. Let diplomacy silence the weapons, let nations chart their future with peace efforts, not with violence and bloody conflicts,” he added.
“In this dramatic scenario, which includes Israel and Palestine, the daily suffering of the population, especially in Gaza and other territories, risks being forgotten, where the need for adequate humanitarian support is becoming increasingly urgent,” Pope Leo said.
The post Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.