India pledges continued support to UNRWA amid financial crisis

India has pledged to continue supporting the embattled UN agency helping Palestinians which is facing a financial crisis even as its needs have risen because of the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza.

R. Ravindra, the charge d’affaires of India’s UN mission, said that the nation will continue its annual contributions of $5 million to the agency and will release half the amount in the coming days.

He was speaking at a pledging conference to help the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which provides humanitarian assistance to Palestinians and is facing a shortfall in budget after its biggest contributor, the United States, and some other countries suspended payments amid allegations of that its staff were involved in terrorism.

Washington contributes about $340 million to UNRWA’s $1.6 billion budget but the US Congress has passed a legislative measure to stop aid to the agency till at least next year.

General Assembly President, Dennis Francis said, “Considering the essential services delivered by the agency and its staff, it should deeply alarm us all that UNRWA is currently standing on the precipice of financial collapse.”

In his pitch for donations to make up for the shortfall, he referred to Commissioner-General Lazzarini’s warning that the budget deficit could force it to end operations this year.

UNRWA, the largest UN agency with 30,000 employees, provides a range of services, from food delivery and housing to healthcare and education.

Ravindra said that UNRWA’s “role to assuage the difficult humanitarian situation remains critical, particularly its humanitarian and social services to the Palestinian refugee community living in Palestine, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon.”

Beyond UNRWA, he said, India has been a “trusted development partner” for the people of Palestine.

“Our developmental assistance to Palestine in various forms over the years amounts to close to $120 million, including $35 million as contribution to UNRWA”, he said.

In addition, New Delhi is giving scholarships to 50 Palestinian students to pursue undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral studies in India and is donating medicines requested by UNRWA.

“There is also a request from Palestinian Authority for life-saving medicines, which we are actively considering”, he added.

Ravindra prefaced the aid commitment to UNRWA with a strong condemnation of the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel which is at the root of the UNRWA crisis and the humanitarian disaster in Gaza.

“The barbaric terrorist attack on 7th October last year deserves our unequivocal condemnation and we demand unconditional release of all hostages”, he said referring to the hostages taken by Hamas and other groups during the attack which killed about 1,200 people in Israel.

At the same time, he said, “India has taken a principled position on the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza and strongly condemned the death of civilians, especially women and children.”

In the Israeli retribution, about 30,000 people, most of them women and children, have been killed in the ground and air attack on Gaza.

“We have also been emphasising respect for international law and international humanitarian law under all circumstances”, he said.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the agency “the backbone of humanitarian operations in Gaza” and “there is no alternative to UNRWA.”

He said that 195 staffers have been killed in the current crisis – “the highest staff death toll in UN history” – and UNRWA is being targeted in many other ways.

“Staff have been the subject of increasingly violent protests and virulent misinformation and disinformation campaigns”, he said, and “some have been detained by Israeli security forces, and subsequently reported mistreatment and even torture”.

“Can you imagine how our colleagues wake up day after day in a living nightmare and still deliver for Palestinians in desperate need? Because I cannot”, he said.

Regarding the criticism of UNRWA, he referred to a report by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna on the controversies surrounding the agency “We are working on all fronts to implement the recommendations of the Catherine Colonna Report, by strengthening UNRWA’s work and risk management mechanisms”, he said.

Her report found that investigations into allegations against UNRWA and its staff had been inadequate.

It said that the agency’s facilities had at times been used for “political or military purposes”, some UNRWA staff had failed to remain neutral and expressed controversial political views, and some school texbooks had "problematic content."

The decisions by the US and other countries to stop funding UNRWA was prompted by Israel’s allegations that 12 UNRWA employees had participated in the 7 October attack.

The UN promptly fired the employees and launched an investigation that is still in progress.

Meanwhile, a Bill to designate UNRWA as a terrorist organisation is wending its way through Knesset, the Israeli parliament, and got through a preliminary vote.