I’m a Gazan Who Relied on UNRWA to Survive. Don’t Defund It—Reform It

When my family was on a single income in Gaza in the year 2000, access to the food and medical services provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) was incredibly important—though I distinctly remember the shame that our family felt as a result of having to seek food through UNWRA aid. My dad, who was unemployed at the time, made sure we brought in the food bags from UNRWA late at night so our neighbors wouldn’t see. Later, my dad would go on to work for the agency as a physician, servicing crowded refugee neighborhoods and seeing hundreds of patients a day.

Seventy percent of Gazans are classified as refugees who qualify for UNRWA schools, have access its clinics, and work for its various programs. As descendants of refugees, a controversial point for many who believe refugee status should not be inherited, our family attended UNRWA’s primary education schools. The classrooms were jam-packed with an average of 55 students, the textbooks were worn out from repeated use, and lice was a constant menace that we suffered from. However, the UNRWA school system, unlike the smaller network of Gaza government schools, was renowned for giving students a quality education and rigorous instruction, which produced academically capable and advanced students. The foundation of my advanced English skills began in UNRWA schools. Similarly, UNRWA’s medical clinics, crowded and overwhelmed, were vital in providing primary health care to Gaza’s impoverished people.

Generally speaking, those who worked for UNRWA had more job stability compared to other sectors in Gaza; indeed, I remember the resentment that the 30 percent of Gaza’s population who were non-refugees sometimes had toward UNRWA, because they were ineligible for its services. To access UNRWA aid, people would use their refugee certificates or “cards,” which, for some, were a symbol of humiliation, displacement, and the lack of self-sufficiency. But for others, these “cards” were an opportunity to have basic needs addressed in the midst of a protracted conflict that prevented sustainable economic development in the Palestinian Territories.

Importantly, UNRWA’s “cards” sustained life for millions of Palestinians in terrible refugee camps, which had evolved into crowded, segregated towns and neighborhoods in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Unfortunately, the agency was also used by Arab regimes and governments to prevent the integration of Palestinians into their respective societies. UNRWA’s camps in these nations became isolated ghettos divorced from the social, political, and economic life in their host nations.

After Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, UNRWA’s services became one of the few lifelines for desperate Gazans stuck between a choking Israeli blockade and Hamas’s incompetence and inability to provide for its people. Amidst rising unemployment, UNRWA became a key provider of stable employment.

And this is the crucial context through which you have to understand this week’s explosive Wall Street Journal report, that the rank and file of the UN agencies have been penetrated by members, affiliates, or patrons of Hamas.

After all, front-line staff, including teachers, medical professionals, drivers, administrative clerks, warehouse workers, and others, were and are hired from the local population. And UNRWA had the immensely unenviable task of operating in a confined area where a terror organization not only became the government but was engaging in activities that could compromise the safety and integrity of the agency’s operations. The agency coordinated with Hamas officials to do its work and conduct its functions, which necessitated having a working relationship with terror group. And this created a normalcy bias whereby UNRWA staff and much of its management in Gaza attempted to maintain the status quo by minimizing friction and confrontation with Hamas.

The biggest problem with UNRWA is that it inadvertently allowed Hamas to go on with its disastrous governance of Gaza and enabled the group to neglect its fundamental role as a government to provide for Gazans by relying on the agency instead. This made Gazans largely aid-dependent and limited prospects for self-sufficiency. While Israel’s blockade played a significant role in worsening conditions for Gaza’s population and making them reliant on humanitarian organizations, UNRWA’s well-intentioned work and services ultimately allowed Hamas to shift a significant burden onto the shoulders of the international community.

In other words, Hamas made terrible choices that had damaging outcomes, but the group insulated itself from the consequences of its destructive policies and decisions.

After multiple reports of UNRWA employees being involved in Hamas’s horrendous October 7 attack, the United States and several European donors who finance the agency stopped their support pending investigations and corrective steps. And yet, cutting off UNRWA’s aid will compound and further complicate the multi-faceted, intransigent problems for Palestinians, Israel, and the region.

Given that UNRWA is now the largest administrator of basic humanitarian services that sustain the battered, hungry, and desperate Palestinian population in Gaza, without the agency, there will be a complete collapse that exacerbates the consequences of the devastating war between Hamas and Israel. While Hamas is still in Gaza, most of its government bodies have all but completely crumbled. And unfortunately, the cash-strapped and Israeli-sanctioned Palestinian Authority (PA) is largely incapable of providing anything that could meaningfully support Gazans during the war.

Without UNRWA, Israel will have to be far more involved in providing for Palestinian refugees and poor people. Otherwise, it will have to deal with the destabilizing consequences of an impoverished and utterly hopeless society on its doorstep. This is understood by many level-heads within Israel, including in the Defense and National Security establishments, and it’s why funding for the agency has persisted for decades.

Moreover, given the instability and fragility of conditions in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, the cessation of UNRWA’s services to millions of poor and isolated Palestinians in second-class ghettos will further aggravate tension all around Israel. Without even the bare minimum of support and sustenance provided by UNRWA, millions could become willing recruits for new waves of violence and destabilization in an already inflamed and volatile region.

Absolutely, there must be robust control and accountability measures to ensure that Hamas terrorists are not hired and retained by UNRWA. Western taxpayers have every right to want their governments’ funds to go towards helping people in need and not enable violent Islamist groups. UNRWA must establish definitive and decisive guidelines and expectations for its Palestinian workforce. This includes professional orientations, ongoing training, ethical and humanitarian oaths, promissory notes, and other measures to ensure its personnel understand that their actions represent and reflect the organization’s integrity, work and image.

The organization should make it clear that public statements, especially on social media, will have consequences for UNRWA staff as is the case in many workplaces around the world. A new body within UNRWA should be established to monitor compliance with these new expectations and policies and to take disciplinary actions against violators who put the well-being of thousands of Palestinians at stake through their irresponsible, violent, and immoral actions and statements.

Other than personnel, UNRWA reform should look at trimming excesses and waste, including highly inflated salaries for upper mid-level and senior management. Furthermore, a serious discussion is needed to help UNRWA extricate itself from some of its deep working relationships with the Hamas authorities in Gaza.

As for disagreements around the fundamental mandate of UNWRA and whether or not it should continue to exist in its current form, discussions and debates can and must take place, but not in the midst of the overwhelmingly complicated geopolitical space and a devastating war.

Gaza’s civilians are suffering due to Hamas’s suicidal terror and the staggering Israeli operation that has killed tens of thousands and destroyed most of the coastal enclave. The decision to defund UNRWA in a divided international community that chooses to remove the only and last hope that Gazans have for staying alive, are excessive, unreasonable, and unfair. Even considering the serious issues there are with UNRWA, defunding and dismantling the agency now will have far-reaching and unforeseen humanitarian and geo-strategic consequences.

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a U.S. citizen from Gaza, is a Middle East political analyst who writes extensively on Gaza’s political and strategic affairs.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.