GAZA—On Sunday, December 1, just days after the Middle East Forum Observer gained access to the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing, United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Philipe Lazzarini declared that UNRWA was “pausing the delivery of aid” through Kerem Shalom. The Swiss-Italian bureaucrat attacked Israel but not Hamas for impeding delivery of humanitarian aid at the main humanitarian aid crossing.
Israel views UNRWA as a pit of pro-Hamas terrorist support. In February 2024, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said dozens of UNRWA employees participated in the October 7, 2023, massacre of over 1,200 people in southern Israel, including more than 40 Americans.
UNRWA has become superfluous. “Only 7 percent of the aid that came into the Gaza Strip in November was coordinated by UNRWA,” said the Israeli Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) military unit tasked with overseeing humanitarian aid to Gaza.
“Only 7 percent of the aid that came into the Gaza Strip in November was coordinated by UNRWA.”
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Colonel Abdullah Halabi, who runs the Gaza division of COGAT, which in turn operates the Kerem Shalom crossing, told the Middle East Forum Observer that Israel refuses to work with UNRWA in Gaza because of its links to Hamas. “Today we have more than 800 truckloads that are waiting for the international community to take them and deliver them to the people inside Gaza,” said Halabi during the November 28, 2024, tour. He said Israel frequently warehouses goods at the depot for lengthy periods because of the lack of international delivery capabilities. Halabi said there is a “need for more trucks and managers.” The Middle East Forum Observer saw vast crates of apples, bananas, pasta, green peas, corn, dishwashing liquid, baby supplies, water, and other goods at the Keren Shalom depot, as well as a long line of trucks waiting to offload and deliver goods.
While the Biden administration pulled the plug on its support for UNRWA in 2024, its statements have mirrored UNRWA’s campaign to blame Israel for the alleged food shortage in the Gaza Strip. In October 2024, the White House went as far as to threaten slashing its military aid to Jerusalem, if the humanitarian situation in Gaza failed to improve.
The problem is that Hamas’s penetration of UNRWA means that the terror group hijacks supplies that UNRWA says it delivers. COGAT spokesman Shimon Freedman told the Middle East Forum Observer, “I disagree with the premise that there is not enough food in Gaza.” He noted that the depot is full of food and stressed that the international community must distribute food effectively to Gazans in need. Freedman added that “COGAT is the only group with a real view of what is going on” in Gaza and it works with dozens of aid organizations.
Unfortunately, rather than identify problems dispassionately to resolve them, UNRWA’s donors resort to polemics. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, a Green Party member, and the ministry’s other left-wing activists, for example, blame Israel and not the Germany-designated terrorist movement Hamas for both aid problems and the hostage crisis in Gaza.
UNRWA, meanwhile, is more interested in denying problems than rectifying them.
The December 4, 2024, IDF announcement that it recovered the body of 38-year-old dual German-Israeli citizen Itay Svirsky, whom Hamas murdered in Gaza, highlights Baerbock’s moral confusion. While Hamas held Svirsky hostage, Baerbock met 11 times with anti-Israel activists and hosted a Foreign Ministry dinner for them. She also played a key role in imposing a German weapons embargo on Israel that impedes Jerusalem’s efforts to root out Hamas terrorists in Gaza, further hampering aid deliveries.
UNRWA, meanwhile, is more interested in denying problems than rectifying them. Veteran British journalist Stephen Pollard wrote about UNRWA’s accusation that Israel launched a “disinformation” campaign against it, observing, “We have now gone full circle when facts are labelled ‘disinformation’ by a UN agency which employs terrorists.”
Republican lawmakers aligned with President-elect Donald Trump, meanwhile, slammed President Joe Biden’s sanctions threat against Israel and urged greater moral clarity. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) wrote: “The United States should have no part in providing aid to Gaza for the same reason the U.S. didn’t provide aid to Nazi Germany. Aiding Gaza will only prolong the rule of Hamas.”
Cotton is correct. It is time to hold Hamas responsible for the suffering in Gaza and UNRWA responsible for decades of mismanagement. The best way to allow Palestinians in Gaza to flourish is not to preserve Hamas but, rather, to stop impeding Israel’s defeat of them.
