UNRWA rowThe war was touched off by Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.About 250 foreign and Israeli hostages were also dragged to Gaza during the October 7 attack, of whom around 132 are still there. That figure includes the bodies of at least 28 people believed to have been killed.Following the Hamas attack, Israel launched a withering air, land and sea offensive in Gaza that has killed at least 26,751 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.The war has displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s population, according to the UN, which warned the humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory would only get worse if major donors didn’t restore funding to UNRWA, its main aid agency for Palestinians.Israel has alleged that several agency staff members took part in the October 7 attacks, leading key donor countries including the United States and Germany to suspend funding.The UN’s coordinator for Gaza aid, Sigrid Kaag, said Tuesday that no other agency could “replace or substitute” UNRWA, which has thousands of employees.The heads of several UN agencies, including the WHO, the UN rights office, UNICEF and the World Food Programme, later issued a statement warning that defunding UNRWA would “have catastrophic consequences for the people of Gaza”.Withholding the funds, they said, was “perilous and would result in the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, with far-reaching humanitarian and human rights consequences”.Washington, which said it had given $131 million to UNRWA since October, said it “very much supported” the agency’s work.”We want to see that work continued, which is why it is so important that the United Nations take this matter seriously, that they investigate, that there is accountability for anyone who is found to have engaged in wrongdoing,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
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