Between dissolving UNRWA and propping it up

Last week Israel’s Knesset advanced three bills “aimed at significantly curtailing the activities” of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, including one branding it a terrorist organization and requiring Israel to formally cut ties with it. This came against the backdrop of yet another IDF unearthing of Hamas weaponry and a command center in UNRWA’s headquarters, and a lawsuit filed by 100 Israelis in a US federal court accusing the agency of inadvertently yet knowingly funding Hamas’s terror activities. Following allegations of UNRWA staff involvement in the October 7 terror attacks, Israel’s intent on dismantling the agency has gathered momentum.

Meanwhile, in an effort to keep the agency afloat, at the UNRWA pledging conference in New York on Friday, 118 countries committed to supporting and bolstering their financial and political backing for UNRWA. Likewise, at the G7 summit in Italy in mid-June, world leaders affirmed UNRWA’s essential role amid Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, emphasizing the need for the agency to be able to operate “unhindered.”

The polarity between the Israeli and international positions is stark. It’s time for Israel, the US, and the international community to embrace a pragmatic middle ground regarding the embattled UN agency. Imperfect as it is, UNRWA’s role in Gaza is vital for the foreseeable future. It anchors the operations of dozens of international agencies and channels vast amounts of aid. No other entity matches UNRWA’s expertise, capacity, and pivotal role in delivering healthcare and education, vital during the transition toward recovery and reconstruction. Yet political and financial support must not come without strings.

Rather than perpetuating a problematic status quo or inducing its immediate collapse, key stakeholders, especially the donor community, must push for substantive, gradual reform that strengthens the humanitarian response while accounting for Israel’s legitimate security concerns.

The flaw in UNRWA’s DNA

The controversy surrounding UNRWA predates the current war. For decades, it has been a critical lifeline in delivering essential services and relief to Palestinian refugees displaced during the 1948 War and their descendants, a beneficiary population now numbering 5.9 million. Yet that ballooning number of beneficiaries also highlights a significant flaw baked into the agency’s DNA: the agency’s lack of a mandate for seeking durable solutions, coupled with host governments and refugees’ refusal to pursue alternatives to foreign aid without return to Palestine. Moreover, UNRWA’s politicization, structural flaws, and operational inefficiencies have cast serious doubts on its viability and integrity. Despite this, the prevailing consensus among stakeholders, Israel included, long favored preservation of the agency in the interest of stability.

That changed on October 7, with the agency facing its most existential crisis of legitimacy to date given allegations of employee ties to Hamas and staff involvement in the recent atrocities.

Weapons found by IDF troops at UNRWA’s headquarters in Gaza City, in a handout photo published July 12, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

In response, major donors swiftly suspended funding, plunging UNRWA into another crisis amid Gaza’s worst-seen humanitarian catastrophe. The UN’s April 2024 Colonna Report, led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, issued about 50 substantive recommendations addressing systemic flaws in UNRWA’s operations, including issues of neutrality, staff vetting, educational shortcomings, and management inefficiencies. For most donors, the report provided the political cover needed to resume funding to the agency, although US funding remains barred until March 2025.

While the Colonna Report is a promising start, resuming funding without attaching conditions and ensuring accountability will fail to achieve the desired concrete changes. UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini appealed for donor support to implement the recommendations during a June 24, Advisory Commission meeting, signaling that UNRWA cannot do this alone. Like many other bureaucracies, UNRWA is not adept at self-reform. Perpetuating the problematic status quo serves no one.

For its part, Israel has embarked on a counterproductive campaign to disrupt this status quo at all costs. The Knesset is advancing a slew of legislation aimed at shutting down UNRWA’s operations in the Palestinian Territories. Israel’s non-cooperation with UNRWA in Gaza already poses a formidable challenge to the humanitarian response. These measures would cripple the agency’s operations without providing a viable alternative – symptomatic of Israel’s lack of a post-war strategy for Gaza more broadly. Curtailing UNRWA’s activities creates a vacuum in service provision, exacerbating the already fragile security situation for Israel and the region by potentially leaving thousands without the relief they need and heightening suffering. Undermining UNRWA’s operations threatens to exacerbate the backlog of aid entering Gaza that isn’t reaching those who need it.

In today’s charged diplomatic climate, political interests and ideology have hijacked discussion around UNRWA’s future, sidelining professional voices advocating for practical solutions. The conflict between Israel and UNRWA has become the proxy battleground for the broader clash between Israel and the United Nations, producing a stalemate that benefits no one: Palestinian beneficiaries are deprived of urgent aid, Israel’s security is compromised, and donors find themselves oscillating between the two, absent a clear strategy.

There is a third way, a pragmatic middle ground and a strategic approach that strikes a balance between Israel’s legitimate security concerns regarding UNRWA’s compromised operations and the international community’s obligation to ensure that adequate relief reaches the most vulnerable Gazans and that essential services continue unimpeded elsewhere. This approach acknowledges UNRWA’s indispensable functions in the immediate term, while insisting that the agency cannot continue unchanged forever and at any cost. Donors are understandably reluctant to keep funding an agency that perpetuates an ever-expanding beneficiary list without pathways for ending refugeehood, an agency that struggles to streamline its operations and fails to safeguard against contamination by terror groups.

Realistic reform efforts

Steps to be taken in the immediate term include a stringent vetting mechanism for hiring new staff, upgraded security at UNRWA facilities to prevent their exploitation by militant forces, scaling up funding to other humanitarian agencies to reduce UNRWA’s role, and the creation of a multilateral forum dedicated to UNRWA reform and its eventual phasing out. This process should include determining which UNRWA services can be transitioned to governments or other entities and ensuring resources are directed to beneficiaries who genuinely need services. UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority should work with Arab Gulf states to facilitate much-needed educational reforms to replace problematic curricular content that incites violence and hatred.

UNRWA will not carry out these reforms adequately without external pressure and without collective, coordinated international action. But pressure must be applied effectively and cannot result in the disruption of essential services. Donors should tie funding to demonstrable and realistic reform efforts with performance-based benchmarks, and monitor progress to ensure compliance. Only by working multilaterally can external players induce the much-needed change.

Ultimately, in the long term, the only real replacement for UNRWA in the West Bank and Gaza is the Palestinian Authority. The temporariness of UNRWA, as enshrined in its mandate, hinges on progress toward a political solution. This is truly the only way to phase out UNRWA for good.

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This article was coauthored by Jess Manville, a policy advisor at Israel Policy Forum and Alex Lederman, Israel Policy Forum’s senior policy and communications associate.

Along with Shira Efron, they are the authors of a report, “UNRWA at a Crossroads: Charting a Course to Meaningful Reform .”