Aid groups appeal to the European Union to release urgent funds for Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA
Aid groups are appealing to the European Union to release tens of millions of euros in funding due to the main U.N. agency that helps most people in Gaza
BRUSSELS — Humanitarian aid groups appealed on Thursday to the European Union to release tens of millions of euros in funding due to the main U.N. agency that delivers most aid to people in the Gaza Strip as the organization teeters on the brink of financial collapse.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, was due to disburse 82 million euros ($89 million) to the UNRWA aid agency on Feb. 29. UNRWA said that it still hadn't received the payment as of Thursday morning.
“This is a moment of reckoning for the EU as a humanitarian leader and a critical donor for this crisis,” said Niamh Nic Carthaigh, from Plan International’s EU Liaison Office.
“Any further cuts to UNRWA funding would be an effective death sentence for civilians trapped in Gaza and the region who rely on the agency for their survival,” she said in a joint statement from 17 aid groups, including the International Rescue Committee, Save the Children and Oxfam.
Israeli troops fired on a crowd of Palestinians waiting for aid in Gaza City on Thursday, witnesses said. More than 100 people were killed, health authorities said, bringing the Palestinian death toll since the start of the Israel-Hamas war to more than 30,000.
UNRWA is reeling from allegations that 12 of its 13,000 Gaza staff members participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel. The agency immediately fired the employees, but more than a dozen countries suspended funding worth about $450 million, almost half its budget for 2024.
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has described the payment due from the EU as
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