UNRWA's Gaza Role in Limbo as Board of Peace Holds Quiet Talks

The future of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza remains unresolved, caught between public declarations that it has no place in the territory's reconstruction and quiet, behind-the-scenes contacts with the body set up to oversee it.

The US-created Board of Peace has said UNRWA will have "no place in the new Gaza," yet board officials have met the agency multiple times since the ceasefire, according to a board official and senior UN officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the media. At least three such meetings have taken place, the UN officials said.

Philippe Lazzarini, who led UNRWA until the end of March and plans to publish a book on his tenure this year, said a technocratic Palestinian committee that the board supports has expressed a desire to work with the agency. Minutes from meetings where the two sides discussed collaborating on plans for Gaza were shared with a news agency.

A Board of Peace official confirmed the repeated contacts but said the agency's days are over. Its programmes "may persist if they are serving Gazans well," the official added. Israel's foreign ministry did not respond to questions about the remarks.

Lazzarini described the agency's position bluntly. "There is no other choice than to partner with the Board of Peace," he said, adding that UN agencies doing so contribute to pushing UNRWA further out of the equation despite the renewal of its mandate and the expectations of people on the ground.

He was sharply critical of the Security Council resolution that created the board, calling the day of its adoption "not the most glorious day" and describing what he felt as "a kind of a capitulation to pressure."

Almost a year after the ceasefire, no reconstruction has begun in Gaza. Israel continues to block the entry of the Palestinian committee chosen by the board to eventually govern the strip, insisting Hamas must first disarm. The board says its plans can begin in earnest once the committee is inside Gaza.

That has left UNRWA as the largest aid provider on the ground, with far more workers than any other UN agency or non-governmental organisation. Lazzarini said it props up about half of Gaza's public health system. "If everyone stopped working today, public health would further collapse," he said.

The agency still has around 11,000 Palestinian employees in Gaza, according to UNRWA. They conduct an average of 14,000 medical appointments daily, maintain water and waste management systems for more than a million Palestinians, run digital literacy and maths programmes for over 280,000 children and staff temporary learning spaces for 60,000 more.

Lazzarini said the agency's role in delivery remains essential. "If you want the vaccine to end up in the mouths of the children, you still need the workforce, the presence of an agency like ours," he said.

Israel has repeatedly accused UNRWA of being infiltrated by Hamas militants, allegations the International Court of Justice says have not been substantiated. Lazzarini said the original information about an alleged staff role was communicated orally, in Hebrew translated into Arabic and then English. He said he believed Israel may have been surprised by how quickly the agency acted on the allegation and initiated its own investigation.

He dismissed the broader charge that the agency was "rotted to the base" and infiltrated by hundreds or thousands of people as an allegation used to undermine and discredit it. "We also know that there is a political intent to get rid of the agency," he said, describing a belief that removing UNRWA would end Palestinian refugee status and what critics call a perpetuation of dependency on international aid.

During the war, sparked by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, UNRWA temporarily took on a larger role coordinating aid entry and distribution. Israeli attacks on the agency curtailed that role, banning its international staff and humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, though Lazzarini said its core programmes remained.

Publicly, the agency has not been included in the board's planning. At a briefing on Wednesday, board members named various UN agencies as partners in reconstruction, but not UNRWA. Lazzarini framed the dilemma facing the agency: "They want to get rid of the agency, but on the other hand they know that if you get completely rid of the agency today, it might have a further additional devastating impact on the population."