The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, known as UNRWA, faces a contradictory situation in the Gaza Strip. It is absent from the announced reconstruction plans being discussed by the US-created Peace Council, while behind-the-scenes meetings continue to explore using its expertise and programmes. The agency remains the largest aid provider in the territory and plays a major role in health, education and essential services.
Israel is seeking to remove the agency from Gaza and has repeatedly accused it of having armed members of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, among its staff.
Palestinian desire to work with UNRWA
The International Court of Justice says these allegations have not been supported by evidence proving them true. UNRWA has continued its work through a wide network of Palestinian staff, facilities and service programmes. Philippe Lazzarini, who headed UNRWA until earlier this year, said members of the Palestinian technocratic committee wanted to work with the agency.
Minutes shared by another UN official with the agency also showed that UNRWA and the committee had discussed co-operation on plans concerning Gaza’s future. A Peace Council official confirmed that council members had held several meetings with UNRWA officials.
Although he said the agency’s “days are over”, the official indicated that its programmes could continue if they served Gaza’s residents well. This reflects a distinction in the council’s vision between retaining the agency in its current form and continuing some of its staff and services. Reconstruction work in the territory has not begun, despite nearly a year having passed since the ceasefire.
Committee’s delayed entry keeps agency present
Israel continues to prevent the Palestinian committee selected by the Peace Council from entering Gaza to eventually administer the territory, insisting that Hamas must disarm first. The technocratic committee, meanwhile, says it needs to be present inside the territory to begin implementing its plans.
The committee’s delayed entry and the failure to launch reconstruction have kept UNRWA present on the ground, with a staff far larger than that of any other UN agency or non-governmental organisation in Gaza. Lazzarini said the parties concerned “want to get rid of the agency”, but realise that removing it entirely at present could leave “an additional devastating impact on the population”.
During the Israeli war that began in October 2023, UNRWA temporarily assumed a wider role, including co-ordinating and distributing aid entering the besieged Palestinian territories. Subsequent Israeli measures greatly weakened that role, with the entry of the agency’s international staff and humanitarian aid into the territory banned.
Scale of services and staffing in Gaza
The agency also runs digital literacy and maths education programmes for more than 280,000 children, as well as overseeing temporary learning spaces serving about 60,000 more. This reach makes its programmes an essential part of the daily services available to residents, regardless of the agency’s absence from publicly announced political visions for governing and rebuilding the territory.
At a briefing given to the Peace Council last Wednesday, members named several UN agencies as partners in rebuilding Gaza, without including UNRWA. Lazzarini said, however, that the Palestinian committee expected to administer the territory had acknowledged in private discussions that the agency was essential to the planning process.
Repeated meetings examine agency’s future role
Two senior UN officials and a Peace Council official said the council had held several meetings with UNRWA since the ceasefire agreement was signed. The officials confirmed that at least three meetings had taken place this year between agency officials and the Palestinian committee, the latest during September, while two were held during Lazzarini’s tenure as UNRWA chief.
Shortly before his term ended, Lazzarini spoke with Ali Shaath, a former deputy minister in the Palestinian Authority and head of the Palestinian committee. Lazzarini said Shaath told him: “I don’t know how I can succeed without you”, referring to the committee’s possible reliance on UNRWA’s expertise, staff and operating systems in Gaza.
An internal UN account of a meeting held in Cairo on 26 January, without UNRWA’s participation, said Shaath praised the agency and clearly expressed an intention to bring it back into the workstream. He also said the system to be adopted by the Palestinian committee would be based largely on what UNRWA does.
The Tony Blair Institute, which works as a partner of the Peace Council, asked for the agency’s assistance and spoke to several of its staff, according to a senior UN official. At a pledging conference in support of UNRWA held on 30 June, the agency’s acting head, Christian Saunders, described its role as “vital” to the efforts by the council and the Palestinian committee to advance implementation of the ceasefire.
The Peace Council official, however, gave a different account of the meetings, saying they focused on understanding how UNRWA’s operations worked in order to develop programmes that were “much more efficient and accountable”.
The official said: “UNRWA’s time is over”, but explained that agency staff could remain if they passed vetting procedures, carried out their assigned duties and did not promote an ideology or Hamas interests. Lazzarini described the position as “an absurd contradiction”, explaining that the Peace Council says UNRWA is unwanted while UN member states expect it to continue carrying out its duties.
The dispute reflects a gap between the drive to end the agency’s current institutional form and the practical need for its extensive network of staff and services. UNRWA was established to assist Palestinians who fled or were forced to leave their homes in areas that came under Israeli control during the 1948 war.
Since then, it has provided relief, education and health services to Palestinian refugees, becoming one of Gaza’s largest employers and service providers. In January 2024, Israel claimed that hundreds of Palestinian armed men worked for the agency and said that more than 10 of its staff had taken part in the events of 7 October 2023.
The allegations were often made without evidence, according to material related to the case. Lazzarini said he had never received written evidence supporting them, despite asking Israel and UN member states to provide it.
At the same time, he said he did not regret deciding to dismiss staff accused of taking part in the attack, adding: “I did it because it was in the agency’s and the people we were helping’s best interest”. Lazzarini also said that during his time as UNRWA chief he faced what he described as “extremely fierce and abhorrent attacks on social media”, as well as harassment in the streets of Geneva and New York.
He said he faced shouting from “pro-Israel groups” during that period. Despite being excluded from the Peace Council’s announced plans, UNRWA remains present in Gaza through thousands of staff and healthcare, education, water and waste management programmes.
Meanwhile, discussions continue over whether some of its programmes could be transferred or its staff retained after vetting, while the institutional form of its role in governing and rebuilding the territory has yet to be decided.
