‘Dire’ financial crisis forces UNRWA to drop hundreds of ex-Gazan staff from payroll |
GENEVA, Switzerland — The UN’s beleaguered agency for Palestinian refugees said that a “dire” financial crisis had forced it to remove hundreds of Gazan staff members who had left the territory from its payroll.
“On Tuesday, 571 local UNRWA staff, outside Gaza, were informed that they were being separated from the agency with immediate effect,” a spokesperson told AFP in an email last week.
For more than seven decades, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees has provided aid and assistance to Palestinian refugees across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.
But the agency has seen the voluntary contributions it relies on dwindle as it has become the focus of increasingly harsh Israeli criticism over its role, causing what the spokesperson called an “unprecedented financial crisis.”
Israel has alleged that more than 10 percent of UNRWA’s staff in Gaza have ties to terror groups, and that educational facilities under the organization’s auspices consistently incite hatred of Israel and glorify terror.
While the work UNRWA was mandated to do cost around $880 million in 2025, the agency received only around $570 million in contributions, the spokesperson said.
“As things stand, we expect a substantial shortfall in 2026,” they added.
All of the staff affected by last week’s announcement had originally worked in the Gaza Strip, but had managed to leave early in the war sparked by the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Hamas on Wednesday slammed the decision as “unjust and a violation of the fundamental rights of these employees.”
“We call on UNRWA… to assume its role and responsibilities towards the Palestinian people and its........