Palestinian refugees stand outside the entrance to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees Health Clinic in the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem, West Bank, on Tuesday. Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI
A banner hangs on a fence for services from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the the Near East in the Aida Refugee Camp near Bethlehem, West Bank, on Tuesday. Photo by Debbie Hill/ UPI
A mural of a Palestinian woman adorns the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees school in the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem, West Bank. Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI
Palestinian refugees stand at the entrance to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees school in the Dheisheh Refugee Camp near Bethlehem, West Bank, on Tuesday. Photo by Debbie Hill/ UPI
Displaced Palestinians receive food aid at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees school in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI
Displaced Palestinians receive bags of flour at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees school in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI
Women sit by clothes drying on a laundry line outside a Palestinian outpost painted in camouflage colors near a tent camp sheltering refugees who have fled fighting between Israeli and Palestinian forces in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI
A tent camp shelters refugees who have fled fighting between Israeli and Palestinian forces in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI
Feb. 1 (UPI) — The United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East is embroiled in controversy after Israel reported a dozen of the agency’s employees directly participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
The report prompted 16 nations to suspend funding to the UNRWA, which provides aid in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is urging donor nations to continue their support amid the war.
The “UNRWA is the backbone of all humanitarian response in Gaza,” he said.
Roots go back to 1949
The agency provides food and medicine, education, healthcare and social services, as well as emergency assistance due to armed conflicts and financial assistance.
The UNRWA was created at the end of the first Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East in 1948, and its mission hasn’t changed — to assist the Palestinian refugees of the 1948 war.
The U.N. General Assembly on Nov. 29, 1947, adopted the Partition Resolution that created Jewish and Arab states from what had been Great Britain’s Palestinian Mandate territory, according to the U.S. Department of State. The leaders of the Arab states viewed the Partition Resolution as favorable to Israel and unfair to the Arab populations living within Israeli territory, and conflict erupted.
Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948. In response, five Arab nations formed the Arab Liberation Army, which attacked Israeli cities, settlements and its military. Volunteers from neighboring Arab states manned the ALA and other irregular forces during the conflict.
The Arab militants attacked Tel Aviv, Israel, on the night of May 14, 1948, and armies from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Egypt attacked the former Palestinian territory. Israeli forces resisted and eventually gained the initiative in the conflict, which lasted into 1949.
The warring states agreed to an armistice and lines of…
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