Norway on Tuesday called on international donors to resume payments to the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) after a report said Israel had yet to provide evidence that some UNRWA staff had links to terrorist groups. Reuters reports.
The United States, Britain and other countries suspended payments to UNRWA earlier this year following Israeli allegations, and Norway, also a major donor to the organization, said funding cuts put Gaza’s population at risk.
A review of the agency’s neutrality by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna on Monday concluded that Israel has yet to substantiate its allegations that hundreds of UNRWA staff were agents of terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip.
“I would now like to encourage countries that are still freezing their contributions to UNRWA to resume funding,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Bart Eide said.
A separate investigation by internal U.N. investigators is looking into Israeli claims that 12 UNRWA employees took part in the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7 that sparked the war in Gaza.
Israel has repeatedly equated UNRWA staff with Hamas members in an attempt to discredit them, without providing any evidence for its claims, while actively lobbying for the closure of UNRWA, as it is the only UN agency with a specific mandate to provide for the basic needs of Palestinian refugees. . If the agency no longer exists, Israel argues, then the refugee problem should no longer exist, and the legal right of Palestinian refugees to return to their land will become unnecessary. Israel has denied this right of return since the late 1940s, although its own UN membership has been made conditional on allowing Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and land.
“Norway has stressed that it is unacceptable to punish an entire organization of 30,000 employees and all Palestinian refugees for the alleged wrongdoing of a small number of the organization’s employees,” Bart Eide said.
While 10 countries have since lifted their suspensions, the US, UK, Italy, Netherlands, Austria and Lithuania have not. A U.N. spokesman said Monday that UNRWA currently has enough funds to pay for operations through June.
READ: Israel has not provided evidence of allegations against UNRWA employees
