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Sweden has paused its support to the UN agency UNRWA.
Now Aid Minister Johan Forssell (M) wants the EU to press Israel for more ways in for emergency aid to Gaza.
– Israel has a responsibility to ensure that emergency aid can arrive.
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full screen Minister of Foreign Affairs Johan Forssell (M). Photo: Ali Lorestani/TT / TT News Agency
Sweden is one of 15 countries that have suspended aid to the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, following accusations from Israel that 12 employees were involved in the Hamas attack on October 7.
Nine people have been fired and a UN investigation is underway.
Concretely, it is about SEK 31 million that the aid agency Sida is waiting to pay out.
– When we receive very serious information that employees, regardless of organization, engaged in corruption or participated in terrorist activity, it is necessary to get to the bottom of this and not sweep it under the rug. The vast majority of countries have reasoned like Sweden, says Aid Minister Johan Forssell (M), and enumerates other countries that have also paused.
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full screen The humanitarian situation in Gaza is described as terribly difficult. Photo: Ahmad Hasaballah / Getty Images Europe
More emergency help
At the same time, the minister notes, there is a “terribly difficult humanitarian situation” in Gaza after four months of Israel’s war against Hamas.
Sida stated yesterday that it is paying out 10.2 million kroner in aid for emergency medical care in Gaza, and that it will shortly also make a decision on another 69 million kroner to humanitarian organizations in the area.
In combination with that, Forssell wants more roads to be opened for emergency aid to enter Gaza.
– So far, much of the discussion has been about UNRWA and the aid that different countries provide. But we haven’t talked much about the fact that there are large resources in the area, that several large appeals for help are signed, but that far too little is getting into Gaza, he says.
“Special responsibility”
Ahead of an EU meeting of aid ministers on Monday, he has written a letter to EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell and initiated a so-called demarche to mobilize a courting of EU ambassadors in Tel Aviv to jointly raise the need for increased humanitarian access to Gaza.
Currently, there are two border crossings to southern Gaza where Israel allows emergency aid to enter. Forssell wants more to be opened.
– Israel has a special responsibility to ensure that emergency aid can arrive. We receive reports of long queues, for example. We can send as much help as we want, but it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t come in.
Criticism of the decision
Many have called the donor countries’ sudden freeze in funding to UNRWA, which runs the largest aid operation in Gaza, collective punishment of the Gazan population.
Criticism has grown since several media reported that Israel’s evidence against UNRWA is not very concrete.
– We have a responsibility towards Swedish taxpayers and people in Gaza that money that we send does not go to people who may have sympathy for terrorism, says Johan Forssell.
He also emphasizes that the 31 million that has been paused is “a small payment”.
– Regarding the nuclear support, we have not made a decision, we are awaiting the investigation from the UN.
FACT This is Unrwa
The UN agency Unrwa (United Nations Relief and Works agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East) was founded in 1949, after the war that broke out with the creation of Israel in 1948, with the aim of helping the more than 750,000 Palestinians who were forced to flee.
Today, Unrwa helps around 5.9 million Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, mainly with school education (58 percent of the budget) and health-related issues (15 percent of the budget).
Around 90 percent of Unrwa’s donations come from UN member countries.
The biggest support has come from (in order of magnitude) the USA, Germany, the EU, Sweden and Norway.
UNRWA in Gaza has over 13,000 employees. Of Gaza’s next 2.3 million residents, close to 1.5 million relied on aid from UNRWA, according to statistics from August 2023. Since Israel declared war on Hamas following the terror-labeled group’s attacks on the country on October 7, 2023, the figure is even higher.
Between 1.7 and 1.9 million people in Gaza are currently taking shelter in UN buildings or refugee camps.
Sources: UN and UNRWA
Read moreFACTWhat is Unrwa accused of?
Israel has stated that 12 UNRWA employees participated in the October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel in which Hamas killed nearly 1,200 people and took around 240 hostages. One of the twelve is accused of having kidnapped a woman, another of having participated in a massacre on a kibbutz, a third is said to have distributed ammunition, reports New York Times.
Israel has also claimed that around ten percent of UNRWA’s staff in Gaza are Hamas members, according to the Wall Street Journal. Membership is prohibited for Unrwa employees, although this does not automatically mean being in the military branch.
The Israeli security service is said to have cross-checked personnel lists from UNRWA with a register of Hamas members found on a computer in Gaza. Tracking and wiretapping are also said to have taken place.
Sources: TT, New York Times, Wall Street Journal.
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