The head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on Thursday said that the agency has "reached breaking point."
"The Agency has reached breaking point, with Israel's repeated calls to dismantle UNRWA and the freezing of funding by donors at a time of unprecedented humanitarian needs in Gaza," UNRWA director Philippe Lazzarini said in a letter to President of the UN General Assembly Dennis Francis.
Lazzarini said the agency's ability to fulfil its mandate "is now seriously threatened."
Israel has accused a dozen UNRWA employees of being involved in the terrorist acts committed by Hamas on October 7.
The reports have led a number of Western countries to suspend funding to UNRWA, including major donors the United States and Germany.
Lazzarini said that the suspension of 16 donor countries' contributions to the agency, totalling $450 million, would lead to UNRWA operations across the region to be "severely compromised from March."
"I fear we are on the edge of a monumental disaster with grave implications for regional peace, security, and human rights," Lazzarini continued.
"Calls today by the Government of Israel for UNRWA’s closure are not about the Agency’s neutrality," Lazzarini argued. "Instead, they are about changing the long-standing political parameters for peace in the occupied Palestinian territory set by the General Assembly and the Security Council. They seek to eliminate UNRWA’s role in protecting the rights of Palestine Refugees and acting as a witness to their continuing plight."
Set up in 1949, UNRWA provides relief to Palestinian refugees, operating educational and medical facilities. More than 30,000 people work for the organization, some 13,000 of them in the Gaza Strip alone.
The agency is seen as irreplaceable in the area, where it provides aid to more than 2 million civilians currently suffering the effects of the Gaza War.
