Palestinians taking shelter at a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.​
Palestinians taking shelter at a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa/ZUMA

-Analysis-

PARIS — This is a scandal with unfathomable ramifications. UNRWA, the UN agency that has been providing assistance and protection to Palestine refugees for the past seven decades, is now caught in a potentially deadly storm. Israel has accused 12 Palestinian UNWRA employees in Gaza of taking part in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas — an extremely serious accusation.

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UNRWA immediately responded by suspending nine of the incriminated individuals; another one has died, and the identity of the remaining two is uncertain. An internal investigation has been launched.

But this was not enough to put out the fire. The United States immediately suspended its funding for UNRWA, followed by 10 or so Western countries, including the United Kingdom and Italy. France reacted in two steps, first saying it was pleased about the opening of the investigation, and then issuing a second statement to indicate that no French funding was planned for this semester — a non-statement that speaks volume about the pressures at play.

Middle judgment

The context, of course, is that of the ongoing humanitarian tragedy in Gaza, where more than 26,000 people have been killed and an estimated two million Palestinians are facing extreme shortages, bombing and are repeatedly forced to flee for their lives.

Cutting off aid funding, in such a situation, seems like a death sentence. Both Norway’s government and the Doctors Without Borders NGO said so — and so did Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, who said he was “shocked” by what looked like “collective punishment.”

The accusation against UNWRA employees is obviously very serious.

This also comes in the wake of Friday’s preliminary ruling by the International Court of Justice regarding the South African case against Israel on “genocide” grounds. The Court delivered a Solomonic judgment of sorts that satisfied no one.

By refusing to call for an immediate ceasefire, it frustrated the Palestinians — while angering Israel by acknowledging the grounds of a possible genocide charge and urging the country to do everything in its power to avoid it, including not hindering humanitarian aid.

An UNRWA fuel truck queues to enter Palestinian territories from Rafah Border Crossing.
An UNRWA fuel truck queues to enter Palestinian territories from Rafah Border Crossing. – Gehad Hamdy/dpa/ZUMA

Missing the point

It was on the very same day that accusations against UNRWA were leveled — Israel’s indirect way of responding to the international court verdict. The country’s foreign minister even went as far as vowing to exclude UNRWA from any post-war settlement in Gaza.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on countries that decided to cut funding to reconsider, arguing that from February on, there will be no means to guarantee that aid reaches the desperate civilians in Gaza.

It reinforces the suspicion of “double standards.”

The accusation against UNWRA employees is obviously very serious. But Western reactions are equally significant, especially when they don’t wait to determine whether the alleged crimes stem from the individual act of 12 out of 13,000 UNWRA employees, or are proof of a more structural problem, as Israel claims.

In essence, targeting UNWRA is like destroying the thermometer without addressing the cause of the fever, i.e. without addressing the roots of the Palestinian issue. And it reinforces the suspicion of “double standards” whenever it comes to Israel and the West. In either case, it does nothing to advance the cause of peace.