The lives of over 2 million people have been devastated in Gaza and the
catastrophic situation deteriorates by the minute [photo credit: UNRWA]
Besides creating huge gaps in an already dire humanitarian situation,
terminating UNRWA would also not achieve Israeli political goals to
erase the Palestinian right of return to present-day Israel or the
right to compensation: Palestinian refugees would retain this right
under international law and UN General Assembly resolution 194 and successive generations of Palestinian refugees would still be entitled to refugee status.
Another option sometimes mooted is
for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to take charge of providing services
in the Palestinian Territories. However, this faces several challenges.
Firstly Israel is against a PA presence in Gaza. Secondly, to the PA itself, this would mean political suicide: it has no legal mandate to represent the 3.3 million
Palestinian refugees living outside the Palestinian Territories in
Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. A takeover might lead to perceptions that
the PA is complicit in suppressing this right to return to Palestine.
Lastly, it is difficult to imagine the PA having the capacity to take
charge given its already dire financial situation which has been compounded by the war.
UNRWA certainly faces real issues. But Europeans should be careful
not to play into Israeli efforts to delegitimise not just the
organisation but the Palestinian right of return. Rather than ending
UNRWA, the fact that over time the agency’s mandate has been extended, and Palestinians’ needs only grow, points to the need for an enhanced UN mandate to support Palestinians more comprehensively, as experts on
the issue have been arguing even before 7 October. Europeans should
immediately resume all funding amid the current desperate humanitarian
situation in Gaza. In the long term, they should support such an
expanded mandate with political buy-in and a comprehensive support
package.
The basic rights of Palestinian refugees should be at the centre of
this enhanced mandate, which should be depoliticised and rather based on
key humanitarian principles like neutrality and impartiality. This
might incentivise donors to provide UNRWA with more predictable,
multi-year funding. At the same time, donors should make clear that the
rights of Palestinian refugees, including the right of return, should
remain and be upheld.
UNRWA’s mandate should also see an expansion of protection services,
like relief from trauma and distress – which could also prevent people
from embracing extremist ideologies – as already set out by UNRWA’s strategic plan.
It should also focus on helping Palestinians multiply the effects of
donor support, rather than rely on it, through programmes facilitating
economic self-reliance. This would also be more cost-effective for
donors. Moreover, to address donor concerns over potential collusion
with Hamas, the UN could set up an independent monitoring mechanism to
inspect the delivery of aid to Gaza as well as regularly vetting UNRWA
staff and partners.
Lastly, instead of having agencies clashing over what falls under
which mandate, the approach should involve a cooperative framework where
the UN and other agencies act under one umbrella to ensure support to
Palestinians, aided by NGOs and civil society, especially those led by
Palestinians.
Getting rid of UNRWA is unlikely to address key Israeli and Western
concerns. Rather this moment represents an opportunity to make the
agency more effective in the current crisis and more sustainable in the
post-war scenario, both in Gaza and other regions where displaced
Palestinians are living. But these discussions are irrelevant as long as
UNRWA risks collapsing. All European donors including Germany must
urgently renew their funding and not wait for the result of a full UN investigation into claims over Hamas links. After the war, the aim should be for UNRWA to continue serving Palestinian refugees until a fair and just solution for them is found.