*Karachi – Months after normalisation of ties between Israel and the UnitedArab Emirates (UAE), the two countries are now working on a plan toeliminate the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for PalestinianRefugees (UNRWA), a blow to unsettled issue of Palestinianrefugees, Jerusalem Post has reported.*
As per the report, officials in UAE are devising a plan to graduallyeliminate UNRWA, without making it conditional on a resolution of therefugee issue. The UAE has been a major funder of UNRWA in 2018 and 2019,along with Qatar and Saudi Arabia. US President Donald Trump cut off USfunding to UNRWA in 2018 which severely impacted the agency’s ability toprovide aid and health services to Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip.
The move will allow Abu Dhabi to promote Israel’s long-standing demand thatUNRWA is obstructing peace.
Earlier in November, UNRWA Commissioner-General Phillippe Lazzarini saidthat the UN body is “on the edge of a cliff”, unable to cover its expensesfor the first time in its history.
He added that while in 2018 and 2019 the UAE, along with Qatar and SaudiArabia, had funded UNRWA, helping to offset the US cut-off in aid, in 2020the UAE also cut off most of its financing of the agency, even as it was”on the verge of bankruptcy”.
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Approximately 70 years back, UN agency, UNRWA, was established to supplyaid to Palestinian refugees. The agency’s mandate is renewed every threeyears. Last year in November, the UN General Assembly approved theextension of UNRWA’s mandate for three more years, only a week after itscommissioner-general Pierre Krahenbuhl resigned after a UN ethics reportalleged mismanagement and abuses of authority among senior officials of theagency, after what Israel called for UNRWA’s closure.
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