For conservative Israeli and U.S. politicians, the war in Gaza offers more than an opportunity to destroy Hamas, which last month carried out the worst terror attack against Israeli civilians in a generation. It also provides a chance to dismantle or defund a massive United Nations relief agency at the forefront of international efforts to provide aid to more than 1 million Palestinians currently displaced in the Gaza Strip.
“There will be a new reality in Gaza,” Danny Danon, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations, predicted in a phone interview with Devex, proposing the relief agency be disbanded and replaced by another U.N. entity without the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency’s history and political baggage.
For decades, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, in Gaza has been a political lightning rod, vilified by rightist Israeli and U.S. politicians as a witting or unwitting pawn of Hamas, which has governed the 45-kilometer stretch of land since 2007.
About the author
Colum Lynch
Colum Lynch is an award-winning reporter and Senior Global Reporter for Devex. He covers the intersection of development, diplomacy, and humanitarian relief at the United Nations and beyond. Prior to Devex, Colum reported on foreign policy and national security for Foreign Policy Magazine and the Washington Post. Colum was awarded the 2011 National Magazine Award for digital reporting for his blog Turtle Bay. He has also won an award for groundbreaking reporting on the U.N.’s failure to protect civilians in Darfur.
