USAID announces funding for Gaza — but not UNRWA

The United States is sending another $53 million to Gaza and the West Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power announced Tuesday — money that will go toward the World Food Programme and other international nongovernmental organizations attempting to respond to the crisis. Crucially, the United States is redirecting Gaza funding away from the beleaguered U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, and instead, toward agencies across the U.N. system. The United States halted funding to UNRWA after Israel accused a dozen UNRWA workers of being involved in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack — and ever since, the organization has been in freefall. Nine of those employees were fired, with the remaining three either dead or unaccounted for. And despite pleas from U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, the United States, the United Kingdom, and a slew of other countries halted their funding toward the agency. With the U.S. Congress previously authorizing more than $300 million a year for the agency, the cuts are a massive loss to the agency at the center of the crisis in Gaza. “It’s not a suspension, it’s a prohibition on providing further funding,” said David Satterfield, the State Department Special Envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues, speaking at an event hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace earlier this month. Power announced the new round of funding from a WFP warehouse in Jordan. Amidst towering blue-branded boxes, Power warned of bureaucratic bottlenecks and inspection delays, which she said were blocking food and aid from getting to those who needed it most. Carl Skau, the World Food Programme’s deputy executive director, said the agency was ready to “swiftly expand and scale up operations” if a cease-fire agreement made such action possible. “But in the meantime,” he added, speaking at the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, “The risk of famine is being fueled by the inability to bring critical food supplies to Gaza in sufficient quantities.” UNRWA is not immune to those challenges. But its reach across Gaza — with thousands of staff throughout the territory, versus the World Food Programme’s 70 — makes it the largest responder in the embattled territory. Still, policymakers and lawmakers in the U.S. are increasingly pushing toward other options. “UNRWA is the main body responsible for distributing assistance right now. But that cannot be a reason not to take a very hard look at UNRWA, and look at changes that need to be made,” said Dennis Ross, a counselor at Washington Institute for Near East Policy, at an event hosted by the pro-Israel organization U.N. Watch earlier this week. Others — including the U.N. Secretary-General — have warned what dismantling UNRWA could mean for the people of Gaza. Last week, Guterres urged the heads of humanitarian agencies, including the World Food Programme, to reject the appeals by the United States and Israel to take over UNRWA’s work. “There are 3,000 Gaza staff members that are the backbone of the humanitarian distribution inside Gaza,” said Guterres in a recent press briefing. “No other organization has a meaningful presence inside Gaza.”