UNRWA is infiltrated by Hamas. It should be defunded and dismantled.

If 12 out of 30,000 staff members of any Western humanitarian agency were accused without substantiated evidence, would anyone call for the entire institution to be dismantled and millions who rely on it left to starve? The demand to dismantle UNRWA reflects the logic of collective punishment that has long characterized Israel's colonial project.

Israel's allegations have failed independent scrutiny. Both the UN-commissioned Colonna Review and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Israel had not substantiated its allegations against UNRWA. Most donor states that initially suspended funding later restored it after independent reviews.

The claim that UNRWA is infiltrated by Hamas is a continuation of decades of Israeli attacks on the institution because it embodies the international community's continuing responsibility for the unresolved question of Palestinian refugees. By targeting UNRWA, Israel seeks not only to obstruct humanitarian relief and dismantle the agency, but also to erase the question of Palestinian refugees and their collective right of return.

UNRWA is indispensable for Palestinian refugees. It provides education, healthcare, social services, and emergency relief to 5.9 million Palestinian refugees across Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. No other organization has UNRWA's mandate, infrastructure, institutional knowledge, or workforce. Dismantling the agency would devastate the civic life of millions of Palestinian refugees while no viable replacement exists.

In Gaza, where 2.2 million Palestinians face genocide, forced starvation, and siege, defunding UNRWA had catastrophic consequences. As the only agency with the mandate and capacity to deliver humanitarian assistance at that scale, UNRWA is indispensable. Funding suspensions by more than fifteen donor states paralyzed life-saving aid and accelerated starvation and disease. Israel and its allies then sought to replace UNRWA with aid mechanisms outside the UN system, such as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose distribution sites have been repeatedly condemned as "death traps" by UN officials and humanitarian organizations after Israeli forces killed more than 1,300 Palestinians seeking food in just two months during 2025.

UNRWA funding was suspended at precisely the moment the world's highest court ordered the opposite. Just days after the ICJ ordered Israel to ensure urgently needed humanitarian assistance in Gaza, sixteen donor states suspended funding to the backbone of that assistance. Instead of fulfilling their obligations under the Genocide Convention, they undermined the principal humanitarian lifeline for Palestinians. Most later restored funding after Israel's allegations failed independent scrutiny. Their swift response to unverified allegations contrasts sharply with decades of military, diplomatic, and financial support for Israel despite its persistent violations of international law.

UNRWA was never intended to be a permanent solution for Palestinian refugees. It was established in 1949 after Israel's ethnic cleansing of more than 800,000 Palestinians as a temporary agency to provide essential services pending a just and durable resolution of the Palestinian refugee question. More than seventy-five years later, Israel, enabled by the international community, continues to deny Palestinian refugees their rights of return, restitution, and compensation, as affirmed in UN General Assembly Resolution 194. At the same time, it continues to create new waves of displacement while attacking the only institution mandated to provide humanitarian services to Palestinian refugees.