Sweden has announced its decision to no longer fund the United Nations refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide increased overall humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels.

The Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, “The government’s core support to UNRWA ends.”

UNRWA provides assistance to nearly six million Palestinian refugees across Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Israel, which said it will ban UNRWA operations in the country from late January, has alleged that 19 employees from the agency were involved in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on Israel.

After an investigation by the UN’s oversight body, the UN terminated nine UNRWA employees it found “may have been involved” in the attack.

According to Swedish International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Minister, Benjamin Dousa, Sweden’s decision was made in response to the Israeli ban because it will make channelling aid via UNRWA more difficult.

Sweden plans to increase its overall humanitarian assistance to Gaza next year to 800 million Swedish kronor ($72.44m) from 451 million Swedish kronor ($41m) spent this year, its Foreign Ministry said.

The ministry added that aid will flow via several organisations, including the UN World Food Programme, UNICEF, the UN Population Fund and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The new Israeli law does not directly ban UNRWA’s operations in the occupied West Bank and Gaza but it will have a severe impact on UNRWA’s ability to work.

Top UN officials described UNRWA as the backbone of Gaza’s aid response.

The refugee population relies on UNRWA healthcare, education, emergency relief and humanitarian assistance, it noted.

The UN General Assembly threw its support behind UNRWA this month, demanding that Israel respect the agency’s mandate and “enable its operations to proceed without impediment or restriction.”

The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement that it rejects the idea of finding “alternatives to UNRWA”, adding that the agency had a “special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”

UNRWA Chief Slams Sweden’s Decision

UNRWA Chief, Philippe Lazzarini called Sweden’s decision “disappointing” and coming at the “worst time for Palestine refugees.”

“The decision is one day after the members of the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution in support of UNRWA. This is a sad day for Palestine Refugees and the multilateral system which Sweden has spearheaded.”
Philippe Lazzarini

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN refugee agency for Palestinians, called for “political courage to defend and reinforce the multilateral system and the international rules-based order.”

In an article he wrote for a newspaper, he said the international community will have to choose between a world “where we have reneged on our commitment to provide a political answer to the question of Palestine.”

He called it “a dystopian world, where Israel, as the occupying power, is solely responsible for the population in the occupied Palestinian territory.”

Lazzarini stressed that in the other direction “lies a world where the guardrails of the rules-based order hold firm and the Palestinian question is resolved by political means.” “This is the path currently being pursued by the global alliance for the implementation of the two-state solution,” the UNRWA chief added.

Lazzarini also stressed that Israel continued to claim that UNRWA is “infiltrated by Hamas, even though all allegations for which evidence has been offered have been thoroughly investigated”.

At least 45,206 Palestinians have been killed and 107,512 injured in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, 2023, the Health Ministry in Gaza says.

In its latest daily update, the ministry said that hospitals in the besieged and bombarded territory received a total of 77 bodies and 174 others who were wounded.