Qatar pledges $25M in assistance to UN Palestinian refugee agency

CAIRO

Qatar and Iraq on Wednesday pledged $25 million each in assistance to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Qatar's UN ambassador Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani said the funds aim to help the UN agency meet emergency needs.

Qatar condemns “the systematic campaign aimed at dismantling UNRWA, and regrets a decision by some donor countries to suspend their funding to the agency,” she added.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein also said Baghdad will donate $25 million to the UN refugee agency.

“There is a fierce attack on UNRWA, represented in cutting off funding by many Western countries,” he said in statements on the sidelines of a meeting of Arab foreign ministers at the Arab League headquarters in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

The top Iraqi diplomat called on all countries “to continue their support for the UNRWA.”

Israeli authorities have accused some of UNRWA’s employees in Gaza of taking part in the Palestinian group Hamas’s Oct. 7 cross-border attack.

Several countries have suspended funding for the agency, which was established in 1949 to help Palestinian refugees across the Middle East. The agency said it terminated contracts with the employees following the allegations.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive, now in its 152nd day, on the Gaza Strip since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, which Tel Aviv said killed nearly 1,200 people.

More than 30,700 Palestinians have since been killed and over 72,000 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala