The United Kingdom will add £19 million ($24 million) to its funding for Gaza, with 37% of that sum going to the terror-linked UNRWA aid agency for Palestinians, the government in London announced on Monday.
The Foreign Office announced the budget hike in a statement ahead of a visit this week to Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and Israel by International Development Minister Anneliese Dodds.
The $9 million addition in funding for UNRWA, whose activity was recently outlawed in Israel because Jerusalem considers it a Hamas instrument, is meant to address humanitarian needs in Gaza, where winter conditions could worsen living standards. It will come on top of nearly $44 million that the United Kingdom has already pledged to transfer to UNRWA this year.
According to Israel, more than 450 people belonging to terrorist groups in Gaza, mainly Hamas, were also employed by UNRWA, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency. Critics of UNRWA say its definition of a Palestinian refugee, where the status is passed down to the next generation forever, even for people who become citizens of other countries, is designed to undo Zionism. UNRWA officials have denied this.
On Oct. 28, the Knesset passed laws banning UNRWA from being present in Israel and outlawing cooperation by Israeli officials with the agency.
The remaining $15 million of the $24 million in new funding will be allocated to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the World Food Programme (WFP), the Foreign Office said.
This funding, part of a broader £99 million ($126 million) commitment to what the British government refers to as the “Occupied Palestinian Territories” this fiscal year, is earmarked for health, water and sanitation services, the British government said.
Dodds is also set to visit a Palestinian community that “is subject to settler violence and is at risk of demolition and displacement,” the statement said.
