OSLO/OTTAWA: Many countries that paused funding to the UN Palestinian refugee agency are likely having second thoughts and payments could resume soon, Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said on Wednesday.

Several countries, including the United States and Britain, paused their funding to UNRWA after accusations by Israel that a dozen of its 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in the Oct 7 Hamas raid on Israel.

Norway, a top donor to UNRWA, has maintained its funding and transferred 275 million crowns ($26 million) in February, its regular annual contribution, and said more could come. It is also lobbying countries that have paused funding to resume.

“I think that a large number of those countries who suspended are (having) second thoughts,” Barth Eide said in an interview, citing the recognition from these nations that “they cannot punish the whole Palestinian society”.

Canada plans to go ahead with a scheduled $18.5m payment in April

“This is increasingly recognised and agreed by many,” he said, after meeting Norwegian aid organisations to take stock of the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

“But then, of course, they need an honourable way out, which means they are hoping, I think — without speaking for individual countries — that they will get something from these investigations that suggest that they can say: “well, we needed to suspend, but now we’re back’.”

The UN is conducting an internal probe, while former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna is leading an independent review. UNRWA sacked the staff accused by Israel of involvement in the Oct 7 raid, saying at the time that the Israeli allegations — if true — were a betrayal of UN values and of the people UNRWA serves.

Juliette Touma, UNRWA director of communications, said none of the 16 donors which had frozen their funding had resumed yet, and urged them to reconsider their decisions. “We are operating from hand-to-mouth. That’s how we got through February. That’s how we will get through March,” she said. “Every penny counts.”

Canada to unfreeze fundsCanada is planning to resume funding to the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA weeks after pausing donations over Israeli allegations, CBC News reported late on Tuesday.

The federal government plans to go ahead with a scheduled C$25 million ($18.5 million) payment in April and announce new funding, CBC reported, citing an unnamed government official.

Spokespeople in the foreign ministry and in the ministry of international development, which oversees Canadian aid, declined to comment on the CBC report.

If confirmed, Canada could be among the first countries to unfreeze funding for the agency that employs 13,000 people in Gaza to run schools, healthcare clinics and other social services, and to distribute humanitarian aid.On Monday, UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said the agency was “functioning hand-to-mouth” due to the funding pause.

Israeli authorities have long called for the agency to be dismantled, arguing that its mission is obsolete and it fosters anti-Israeli sentiment among its staff, in its schools and in its wider social mission. UNRWA strongly disputes this characterisation.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2024