The United Kingdom suspends its funding to the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency
The UK has joined the US, Canada, Australia and Italy in suspending funding to the UN Palestine Refugee Association over its suspected involvement in the attacks on Israel on 7 October.
The British Foreign Office announced on Saturday that it joins other countries in making a decision to temporarily suspend funding to the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA), due to its suspected involvement in the attack on Israel.
“We will temporarily suspend any future funding to UNRWA while we analyze these deeply troubling allegations,” the State Department wrote in a press release, expressing its “dismay” at these accusations.
The British Foreign Office assumed, in a document published by Sky News, that the British government “will remain committed to sending humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, who desperately need it.”
The matter relates to UNRWA’s announcement on Friday of the opening of an immediate investigation and the expulsion of several of the organization’s employees for their alleged participation in the attacks on Israel on October 7.
Both the Commissioner of UNRWA, Philip Lazzarini, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, expressed their horror at this information and promised to launch an immediate investigation into what happened.
This fact prompted countries such as the United States of America, Canada, Australia and Italy to suspend funding for the United Nations Association for Palestinian Refugees.
In the memo suspending US funding, the State Department listed the names of 12 officials involved, a fact that has not yet been confirmed by the United Nations.
Hamas denied that UN personnel had cooperated in its military operations, while the Palestinian National Authority expressed its “deep astonishment at the actions taken by some countries before the end of the UN investigations” to determine the veracity of suspicions.
