Famine in Gaza is being made ‘inevitable’, says UN rapporteur
Countries
defunding UNRWA, the main aid distributer in Gaza, accused of
collectively punishing more than 2.2 million Palestinians
The
Gaza Strip is facing “inevitable famine” because of the decision by
western countries to pause funding for the UN’s agency for Palestinian
affairs after Israeli accusations that 12 of the group’s employees took
part in the Hamas attack on 7 October last year.
Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said
on Sunday “famine was imminent” and now “inevitable”, in a comment
following the news that the US and nine other countries were suspending
additional funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian
Refugees (UNRWA).
“This collectively punishes over 2.2 million Palestinians,” he said.
According
to the UN secretary-general,António Guterres, 12 UNRWA staff members
were identified by Israel, nine of which had been fired, one killed and
the identities of two more were being checked. A UN investigation has
been launched.
Israel
has not publicly shared the details of its allegations against the
UNRWA employees, which according to the Axios website were provided by
the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and internal security service, the Shin
Bet. The information “pointed to the active participation of UNRWA
staffers along with the use of the agency’s vehicles and facilities”, it
reported.
An UNRWA employee in the region said staff lists in Gaza
were cross-referenced against UN blacklists and shared with Israel, and
that Israeli authorities had not raised significant objections before.
It was also unclear yet what reassurances from UNRWA would be required for donors to restart funding, they said.
About
half of Gaza’s population was already heavily dependent on UNRWA
assistance before the war, the organisation providing help so essential
that in some areas it supplants state services inadequately run by
Hamas. The organisation provides schooling, medical care, flour for
local bakeries, and runs desalination plants to ensure Palestinians can
get clean water.
Since 7 October, when the
Palestinian militant group launched an unprecedented attack on Israeli
territory, killing about 1,140 people, UNRWA’s schools have become
shelters for those displaced amid the Israeli bombing campaign which has
killed more than 26,400 people. The agency is also the main vector for
aid distribution.
“This will be a catastrophic
situation,” said Haneen Harara, a worker at a Dutch non-governmental
organisation, sheltering in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah. Her
family had already spent hours each day queuing and walking to find what
little food and water was available, much of it provided by UNRWA, she
said. “If UNRWA shuts down it will make the situation so much worse.
Even before this news there were huge limits on the aid entering Gaza.”
While
UNRWA staff are trained for emergency responses, the worst-case
scenario planning for Gaza envisioned 150,000 displaced people in 50
shelters for a maximum duration of 50 days. The war, entering its fourth
month, has displaced 85% of the population from their homes and left
civilians facing acute shortages of food, water and medicine in cold and
wet winter conditions.
Palestinian children forced out of the north of the Gaza Strip at makeshift shelters in Deir al-Balah, 28 January. Photograph: Mohammed Saber/EPA
The
funding freeze drastically threatens the already meagre supply of aid
reaching the besieged coastal territory. Humanitarian groups including
the UN estimate that 500 lorries carrying aid are required daily to
provide the minimum help required, but the number at the moment able to
cross through Egyptian and Israeli checkpoints is often below 100.
Prior
to the donor decision, UNRWA had already been forced to make new
distribution plans for food to accommodate the thousands of people
camped in their shelters and often just as many outside, also on the
verge of starvation after being displaced multiple times.
UNRWA’s
crisis has also overshadowed the historic interim ruling on Friday from
the world’s top court that Israel must “take all measures within its
power” to avoid civilian deaths in Gaza and enable the delivery of
humanitarian aid in order to prevent “acts of genocide” in the strip.
Fakhri,
the UN special rapporteur, said on X on Sunday: “The day after [the
international court of justice] concluded that Israel is plausibly
committing genocide in Gaza, some states decided to defund UNRWA for the
alleged actions of a small number of employees. This collectively
punishes +2.2 million Palestinians. Famine was imminent. Famine is now
inevitable.”
The agency, established in 1949
after the creation of Israel, supports more than 5.6 million
Palestinians in the occupied territories, including in Jerusalem, plus
refugees and their descendants in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. It had
already struggled to raise funding in recent years, an issue
dramatically exacerbated by Donald Trump’s 2018 decision to cut US
support, later restored by the Biden administration. In 2022, the US was
the agency’s biggest donor, providing $340m.
A
total of 152 UN employees have been killed in the war to date. Earlier
this week, Hamas and Israel traded blame for an attack on an UNRWA
building in Khan Younis being used as a shelter in which 13 people were
killed.
It is widely believed in Gaza that
anyone who crossed the fence into Israel on 7 October – whether or not
they took part in the atrocities – has been put on an Israeli target
list for assassination by drone or airstrike. Hundreds of Palestinians,
among them petty criminals and civilians, also entered Israel along with
Hamas in the chaos of that morning.
Muthanna
al-Najjar, a journalist who went to Nir Oz kibbutz, filmed the abduction
of the Bibas family and in the footage can be heard imploring the
gunmen not to hurt them. His family home in Khan Younis was hit by an
airstrike in October, and homes belonging to several other relatives
were targeted during a single night in November; altogether he lost 23
family members in the attacks. The IDF did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.
Najjar said: “Even though
I handled the situation humanely, preventing harm to the settlers
[Israelis] during my work, Israel destroyed my house with a missile.”