571 UNRWA Staff in Gaza Strip Dismissed Due to Financial Crisis

JAKARTA - The United Nations Agency for Palestine was forced to dismiss hundreds of staff in the Gaza Strip who had left the Palestinian enclave due to a financial crisis this week.

"On Tuesday, 571 local UNRWA staff, outside Gaza, were told they would be dismissed from the agency immediately," a spokesman told AFP by email, as quoted by Al Arabiya (8/1).

All staff affected by this week's announcement had originally worked in the Gaza Strip, but managed to leave the territory early in the war sparked by Hamas' deadly offensive in Israel on October 7, 2023.

Most have been unable to carry out their duties remotely since leaving Gaza, but remained on UNRWA's payroll until last March, when they were placed on an extraordinary unpaid leave of absence, the spokesperson said.

"Affected staff have been without pay for more than 10 months, and it is impossible to predict when or if they can resume their duties due to circumstances entirely beyond UNRWA's control," the spokesperson said.

"Recognizing that the financial situation of UNRWA remains dire, the agency has taken decisions that will at least allow them to access financial resources quickly, including severance pay," he said.

The spokesperson stressed that UNRWA, which has lost more than 300 employees in Gaza since the beginning of the war, still has about 12,000 staff working in the Palestinian territories.

For more than seven decades, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has provided assistance to Palestinian refugees throughout Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.

However, the agency has seen the voluntary contributions it relies on shrink as it has become the focus of increasingly harsh Israeli criticism and attacks, leading to what the spokesperson called an "unprecedented financial crisis."

Although the work mandated by UNRWA to be carried out costs around 880 million US dollars in 2025, the agency only received around 570 million US dollars in the form of contributions, said the spokesperson.

"With the current conditions, we estimate a significant shortfall in funding by 2026," he explained.

Tuesday's decision was "very difficult and (came) as a result of very challenging financial prospects, as well as an intense smear campaign to weaken UNRWA and deter its donors," the spokesperson said.

Israel has banned UNRWA from operating in its territory, accusing the agency of providing protection to Hamas militants, and claiming that some of the agency's employees took part in the October 7 attack.

A series of investigations found several "issues related to neutrality" at UNRWA, but stressed that Israel had not provided conclusive evidence for its main allegations.