UK wants 'absolute guarantee' of no repeat of UNWRA allegations, says Cameron

Britain wants an “absolute guarantee” that the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees agency (UNWRA) will not employ staff who are willing to attack Israel, Foreign Secretary David Cameron said on Wednesday, Reuters has reported.

Twelve members of UNRWA’s 13,000 staff in the Gaza Strip were accused by Israel of taking part in the Hamas incursion on 7 October. The apartheid state has killed 152 members of UNRWA staff in Gaza since 7 October.

Although no evidence was provided by Israel, Britain last month joined the United States and other major donors, in “temporarily pausing” funding for the agency. Donors such as Britain and the US have indicated they will not resume support until the UN’s internal investigation into the allegations ends. A preliminary report is due to be published in the next several weeks.

“What we’re looking for is an absolute guarantee that this can’t happen again,” said Cameron. “Let’s be clear here that it looks as if there were people working for UNWRA who took part in the 7 October attacks on Israel. That is unacceptable.”

That’s why the UK paused its funding, said the former prime minister during a trip to Bulgaria. “We need these reviews to take place quickly because many UNWRA staff do an absolutely vital job inside Gaza, where they are the only network for distributing aid, to make sure that we get aid to people that need it very, very badly.”

UNRWA was established in 1949 following the creation of the state of Israel in Palestine. In what the Palestinians call the Nakba (Catastrophe), 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes by Zionist terror gangs. Nearly the entire Gaza population now relies on UNRWA for essential basics including food, water and medical and hygiene supplies.

The head of UNRWA said on Tuesday that calls for it to be dismantled were “short-sighted” and that terminating the agency’s mandate would deepen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Britain has provided funding for UNRWA until the end of the financial year and it says it is working with other agencies to help get aid into Gaza.

Israel has long been pushing for UNRWA to be closed down, in the belief that it would signal the end of the Palestinians refugee issue. Under international law, refugees have a right to return to their homeland, but the occupation state has never allowed the Palestinian refugees to exercise that right, even though this was a condition of Israel’s membership of the UN.

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