UNRWA is still in Gaza

These last two years have been a marathon of misery for Palestinians.

The official death toll in Gaza—which has reached over 70,000—is likely a severe undercount. The British Medical Journal, the Lancet, along with researchers at the German Max Planck Society estimate the actual death toll is at least 40% higher and well surpasses one hundred thousand.  Meanwhile, data from an internal Israeli intelligence database says that at least 83% of Palestinians killed in Israel’s onslaught on Gaza are civilians.

The scale of harm to children is indescribable. Tens of thousands of children have been killed. Nearly 40,000 children have lost one or both parents. Some 4,000 children have undergone amputations after traumatic injuries — the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history. Famine and even humanitarian aid have been weaponized.

Just when you think it can’t get worse, recent flooding has turned Gaza’s bombed-out roads into rivers. Rain pouring through plastic sheets and shattered roofs has left hundreds of thousands of families cold, soaked, and with no safe place to go. United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has shelter materials for 1.3 million people waiting just outside Gaza’s borders — along with 5,000 trucks of desperately needed emergency supplies — but Israel continues to block all UNRWA goods from entering.

UNRWA is still in Gaza and continues to save lives and preserve hope to this day.

Despite the attempts by Israeli authorities to block UNRWA’s humanitarian support, UNRWA’s 12,000 staff in Gaza continue to work relentlessly even in the face of their own displacement, injury, and bereavement:

• UNRWA’s healthcare staff are currently providing 40% of Gaza’s primary healthcare needs, treating an average of 10-15,000 people daily; 15.6 million consultations since October 2023.   
• UNRWA engineers keep clean water flowing, supporting the health and hygiene of displaced families. In the last two weeks of November 2025, they brought clean water to 400,000 displaced people.
• UNRWA workers clear 300-400 tons (the weight of a loaded 747 airplane) of solid waste weekly.
• UNRWA psychosocial counselors have provided trauma support to 720,000 displaced persons, including 520,000 children.
• 50,000+ children are now back in UNRWA classrooms, with online lessons reaching hundreds of thousands more.

Israeli government-led attacks on UNRWA aim to disrupt and dismantle its life-saving work.

Even with all the good that UNRWA is doing — and maybe even because of it — UNRWA continues to face virulent and dangerous attacks: both physically and politically. 381 UNRWA staff members have been killed in Israeli military attacks since October 2023, the highest humanitarian death toll in UN history. Gaza-based staff have been detained by Israeli forces, and subsequently reported mistreatment and torture. The Israeli Knesset passed two laws attempting to shut down UNRWA entirely. 

The Israeli government and its supporters have used lawfare to delegitimize UNRWA and UNRWA USA’s humanitarian work. Over the last two years, Israel has also spent many millions of dollars on a multi-channel propaganda campaign, plastering billboards in major global cities likening UNRWA’s 30,000 humanitarian staff to terrorists and flooding the internet, including Google ads, with paid disinformation.

And yet, four separate entities have reaffirmed UNRWA’s neutrality and impartiality.

Israel continues to amplify unsubstantiated allegations about UNRWA’s lack of neutrality despite the following findings:

1. The Colonna Report, led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, concluded that UNRWA has a more developed approach to neutrality than any of its UN and NGO peers. 
2. The OIOS Investigation, conducted by the highest investigatory authority at the UN, responded to Israeli allegations that 19 UNRWA staff members were involved in the October 7th attacks, and found that in respect to nine cases (only .03% of UNRWA’s 30,000+ workforce), Israel has presented evidence that — if authenticated and corroborated — could indicate the said nine staff were guilty. To this day, this evidence has yet to be authenticated or corroborated.
3. The U.S. National Intelligence Council assessed with “low confidence” that a small group of UNRWA staff participated in the October 7th attacks and saw no evidence to suggest UNRWA partnered with Hamas more broadly; and found that Israeli bias serves to mischaracterize much of their assessments on UNRWA resulting in distortions about the Agency.
4. And the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion ruled that Israel is obligated to facilitate UNRWA’s operations; that it cannot impede its work; and that allegations of UNRWA’s lack of neutrality due to alleged Hamas infiltration were not substantiated by sufficient evidence.

UNRWA has taken credible accusations against its staff members extremely seriously. After the OIOS findings, UNRWA immediately fired the nine individuals mentioned in the report and UNRWA’s Commissioner-General stated emphatically that the engagement of UNRWA employees in such activities, if proven, “would in fact be an appalling betrayal of Palestine refugees and UNRWA.”

UNRWA has shared its full staff lists, including functions, names, and IDs, with Israel every year for nearly two decades. Israel had not made objections to any of the staff members put forth since 2011. 

Another accusation against UNRWA that the textbooks used in its schools “are antisemitic” has been debunked by a German expert researcher who states that such allegations are not about improving education for Palestinian children but rather attempts to defund the local education and delegitimize UNRWA.

So why do these attacks persist?

Because UNRWA represents an uncomfortable truth that its detractors don’t want to accept. When taken in context with a multitude of statements advocating for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza by Israel’s top leaders, and the brutal attack on Gaza’s civilians and civilian infrastructure over the last two years, it is clear that UNRWA is targeted precisely because of its role in keeping Palestinians alive and in safeguarding the rights of Palestine refugees. And because it embodies the international community’s commitment to a just and lasting political solution. 

No matter the propaganda, the truth is that UNRWA’s 12,000 staff are the most experienced and trusted cohort of aid workers in Gaza. UNRWA teachers, counselors, medical staff, and engineers are also the experienced technocrats who will be integral to the effective functioning of any future Palestinian state.

How you can help set the record straight and, by doing so, help Gaza rebuild.

Humanitarian aid itself is under attack. You can push back by telling the truth about UNRWA’s work, countering disinformation, and mobilizing support for the only aid agency able to operate at the scale needed in Gaza.

Please tell everyone you know about the real work of UNRWA and UNRWA USA and the support we, and 5.9 million Palestine refugees, need in the face of these dark and cynical attacks on humanitarians. 200,000 American donors have already contributed to UNRWA USA in the last two years and 60,000 have advocated on our behalf. Join us and together we can transform the ugly politicization of our crucial work.

Urge your elected officials to support the UNRWA Funding Emergency Restoration Act (S.898/H.R. 2411) which affirms UNRWA’s indispensable role in the humanitarian response in Gaza and the critical need for continued provision of services to millions of Palestine refugees in all its fields of operation.

The lives and hope of two million Palestinians in Gaza and millions more across the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem), Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon are in our collective hands.

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