UN Palestine refugee agency ‘confident’ Biden will restore US funds stopped by Trump

UNRWA supports millions of refugees but is struggling to keep afloat after budget cut by America

A Palestinian girl carries a boy outside her family’s home at Beach refugee camp in Gaza City last week (Reuters)

United Nations officials are “confident” the incoming Biden administration will restore vital US funds to its Palestinian refugee agency, which announced this week it had run out of money and will not be able to pay 28,000 members of staff.

UNRWA supports 5.7 million Palestinian refugees across Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. It announced on Wednesday it needs $30m in the next two weeks to ensure it can pay salaries this month and an additional $40m to cover salaries in December.

The embattled agency has struggled to keep afloat ever since the United States, its largest individual donor, halted annual aid of $300m in 2018, immediately reducing its budget by a third.

At the time the Trump administration lashed out calling it an “irredeemably flawed operation” and saying Washington was shouldering a “very disproportionate share of the burden”.

The global downturn during the coronavirus pandemic has only further impacted UNRWA’s access to donations as did an investigation launched last November into misconduct allegations.

However, one UN official told The Independent they are now “confident” that president-elect Joe Biden will reinstate UNRWA funding after being sworn into office, adding that officials are maintaining close contact with the transition team about the matter.

Mr Biden has said publicly “he will restore economic and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, consistent with US law, including assistance to refugees”.

It could be a lifesaving injection of cash for the agency that is in the grips of the worst funding crisis in its 70-year-old history.

This week it has faced protests by Palestinian workers in Gaza, whose salaries will partially or fully cut in the middle of a global health emergency.

Also at risk are UNRWA’s health centres and schools which support more than 500,000 children as well as its food delivery programmes: UNRWA feeds over a million Palestinian refugees in the blockade Gaza Strip alone.  

The Independent also spoke to Elizabeth Campbell, UNRWA’s Washington representative, who said there was “no alternative” to UNRWA which remains on the frontline of the pandemic.  

“We have followed closely the public remarks made by Vice President-elect Harris that the Biden administration intends to restore humanitarian assistance to Palestinians.  This is extremely positive and will come at an especially difficult time for the Agency,” she said.

However, she added that a Biden administration would not be able to restart funding until he takes office in mid-January and UNRWA was in dire need of funds this year.  

“If the agency does not receive additional funding, UNRWA will be forced to take even more drastic measures for December.”

Amir El-Mishal, chairman of UNRWA’s Palestinian employees’ union in Gaza, told Reuters its employees had been informed of the impending devastating cuts which “fell on us like a thunderbolt”.

UNRWA has 13,000 members of staff in Gaza which is already suffering from one of the highest unemployment rates in the world and is devastated by economic hardship because of a 13-year Israeli and Egyptian blockade on the strip which is run by militant group Hamas.  

Gulf states have also slashed funding to UNRWA which was blindsided by an investigation launched last year into its former commissioner-general Pierre Krahenbuhl – who later resigned. He denied allegations of misconduct saying his agency was the victim of a political campaign designed to undermine it. UNRWA officials said a UN inquiry found there had been no corruption or misuse of funds.

Last year the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly renewed UNRWA’s mandate for another three years, with 169 votes in favour and nine abstentions. The United States and Israel voted against.