Pressure is building on the controversial U.N. agency UNRWA over its alleged and extensive ties with terror leaders that has propelled hatred for Israel and support for terror through its curricula. Even as 159 countries in the U.N. General Assembly voted in favor of a resolution affirming to “fully support” UNRWA, last week, Sweden announced on Friday that it has decided to end funding to UNRWA due to a ban placed on the agency by the Israeli government and will redirect Gaza aid to other organizations.
Yet, while the U.N. continues to show solidarity with UNRWA, two informed sources confirmed to Fox News Digital that in spite of the vocal solidarity, there is dissension among the ranks.
One U.N. source explained that “several agencies have had behind-the-scenes discussions” about who might “take over and run” UNRWA programming. “One of the main and most notable agencies doing so is the United Nations Development Programme,” the source claimed.
“The UNDP has come forward and said that they can take over from UNRWA to advance peace,” the source said. They noted that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres “shot those requests down,” leading to an “internal conflict.” The source elaborated that recent events “show that there are elements of the U.N. that recognize the challenges and clear issues with UNRWA,” but that “even as other agencies are ringing the alarm bells,” their “offers are being shot down at the highest levels” of the U.N.
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A man walks in front of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Gaza City, Gaza, on January 30, 2023. (Photo by Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Israel Hayom newspaper also reported that Guterres has passed over the UNDP’s offer to take on increased work in the Palestinian territories. The newsaper quoted “fundamental opposition” from the Secretary-General to the UNDP’s “willingness to take on significant areas of responsibility, such as fuel distribution, waste removal and rubble clearance.” It also reported that “preparations are already underway among international aid organizations, led by UNDP, to expand their activities in the Strip.”
Fox News Digital asked Guterres’ spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, about Guterres’ position on the UNDP’s offer to take on UNRWA’s work and inquired about Guterres’ thoughts on recent reports of the agency’s leadership’s ties to terrorists and its difficulties raising funds after news arose that some UNRWA members had participated in the terror attacks of Oct. 7.
Displaced Palestinians ordered by the Israeli military to evacuate the northern part of Gaza flee amid an Israeli military operation, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, October 22, 2024. (Reuters/Dawoud Abu Alkas)
Dujarric told Fox News Digital that “many different U.N. agencies have a role to play, and are playing a role, in humanitarian and development support to the Palestinian people.” He reiterated that, “as we’ve said many times before, no other agency in the U.N. system can replace UNRWA given the scope of its work, notable in health and education. All U.N. agencies, including UNDP, have the same position.”
Dujarric explained that Guterres “will continue to do his utmost to work for an end to this conflict, the unconditional and immediate release of all hostages held by Hamas and other Palestinian groups in Gaza, and for full humanitarian access in Gaza. There are also needs to be a restoration of a political horizon for a two-state solution for the sake of Israelis and Palestinians.”
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini looks on during a press conference in Geneva on January 24, 2023. (Fabrice Coffrin/AFP via Getty Images)
Fox News Digital asked the UNDP whether it had proposed that it could take on UNRWA’s role and asked how seamless that transfer could be and whether a UNDP-led effort might create an atmosphere in which peace and a two-state solution could be reached.
A UNDP spokesperson said that the “UNDP does not propose, nor does it support, being an alternative to UNRWA. UNDP’s position on UNRWA’s irreplaceability is aligned with the U.N. Secretary General’s and is a matter of public record.”Â
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A World Food Programme truck being loaded to deliver aid into Gaza. (United Nations via Reuters Connect)
The spokesperson also sent a statement standing by Guterres’ statement that UNRWA is the “principal means” for supporting Palestinian refugees and that “there is no alternative to UNRWA.”Â
The “irreplaceability” of UNRWA has been questioned, including by senior fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute Hen Mazzig, who recently stated on X that only 13% of aid to the Palestinian people is distributed by UNRWA.
Fox News Digital asked UNRWA to confirm this figure. A spokesperson from the agency said that since October 2023, the agency “has provided over 6
