Jordan Daily – Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said his country will give an extra 20 million euros ($21.88 million) in humanitarian assistance to the U.N.’s refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA).
This will be on top of the 3.5 million euros the country has already pledged in February.
The new funds are aimed at “supporting the organization in its humanitarian work in Gaza and meeting the food, education and health needs of the nearly 6 million Palestinian refugees in the region,” Albares said after meeting UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini in Madrid.
Several countries, including the United States and Britain, paused their funding to UNRWA after Israel’s unfounded allegations that a dozen of its 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Israel made the claims right after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza following a case launched by South Africa.
Other nations, such as Ireland and Norway, have welcomed an investigation into the allegations but said they would not cut off aid.
The Israeli accusations are not the first of their kind. Since the start of the Gaza war, Israel has accused UNRWA employees of working for Hamas in what it considered a “justification” for attacking U.N. schools and facilities in the strip, which houses tens of thousands of displaced people, according to some analysts.
The UNRWA has fired a dozen people and promised a thorough investigation into the claims, which were not specified, while Israel has vowed to stop the agency’s work in Gaza after the war.
