UNRWA commissioner general reaffirms agency relevance and looks to the future

United Nations

Sphinx News: Ahmed Ali

The head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, delivered a stark briefing today in New York, where he addressed members of the press and member states within the Fourth Committee on the agency’s imminent importance and essential function, despite major pushback against what he described as a coordinated political effort to discredit and dismantle the agency.

“There is a perception that the agency is not operational in Gaza or in the West Bank,” Lazzarini said, calling the narrative a product of “misinformation and political attack.” He stressed that despite the forced withdrawal of international staff from Gaza and the West Bank, “we are extraordinarily operational. In Gaza we have 12,000 staff.”

UNRWA currently shelters 75,000 people across hundreds of its facilities in Gaza and has provided millions of services in the last two years. “We are very much involved in ensuring clean access to water,” he said, noting that “about 40 percent of clean water in Gaza is thanks to our engineers on the ground.” The agency is also “assisting 40,000 children on the ground” through in-person schooling and providing online learning to an additional 30,000 children, while supporting 50,000 students in the West Bank.

Lazzarini underscored that contrary to claims circulated in political spaces, “the agency against all odds continues to be highly operational” and remains “the main agency in Gaza and the West Bank,” especially during Israeli military incursions in the northern West Bank. “We remain an extraordinary asset at the disposal of the international community,” he said. “If you get rid of such expertise, you can only weaken in fact any effort trying to promote stabilization.”

Lazzarini’s remarks come against the backdrop of sweeping legislative efforts by the Israeli Knesset to curtail UNRWA’s presence. In October 2024, Israeli lawmakers passed laws banning UNRWA from operating in Israel’s sovereign territory and prohibiting Israeli officials from all contact with the agency—moves intended to cut the agency out of the occupied Palestinian territory as well. The bills, as Lazzarini noted, went into effect in late January 2025 with an overwhelming vote of over 90 Israeli legislators in favor.

On 17 July 2025, new legislation further undermined the legal functionality of UNRWA while tightening tensions between the agency and the Israeli administration. What passed the Israeli parliament was legislation that did two things: it prohibited service providers from supplying UNRWA installations in East Jerusalem with water and electricity and authorized the seizure of land where UNRWA’s Sheikh Jarrah Field Office and Kalandia Training Centre are located.

With UNRWA facilities as protected UN premises under international law, UNRWA released a statement in August 2025 condemning the development as illegal, violating Israel’s commitments as a UN Member State. Other bodies within the UN system followed suit in their condemnation of targeted Israeli legislation against UNRWA.

The UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) concluded that these policies, paired with Israeli-imposed aid restrictions, were “calculated to block lifesaving aid and create ‘unlivable conditions of life’ leading to the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza—a genocidal act.”

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) similarly ruled in October that Israel must lift restrictions on UNRWA and facilitate its relief efforts.

Nonetheless, Israel has categorically dismissed all UN statements and the ICJ’s court ruling, citing select UNRWA staff’s complicity in the October 7th Hamas attacks in 2023.

Following an independent investigation by the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) into the serious allegations, it was found, as stated by Philippe Lazzarini on 5 August 2024:

“The OIOS investigation’s outcomes are the following:

“In one case, no evidence was obtained by OIOS to support the allegations of the staff member’s involvement. That staff member has rejoined the Agency.

“In nine other cases, the evidence obtained by OIOS was insufficient to support the staff members’ involvement and the OIOS investigation of them is now closed.

“For the remaining nine cases, the evidence—if authenticated and corroborated—could indicate that the UNRWA staff members may have been involved in the attacks of 7 October.

“I have decided that in the case of these remaining nine staff members, they cannot work for UNRWA. All contracts of these staff members will be terminated in the interest of the Agency.”

With the political implications hindering the legitimacy of the agency, Lazzarini added that the agency is now “constantly on the edge of a cliff for financial implosion,” with severe deficits threatening essential services. “We are looking at how to bring our supply into Gaza,” he said, noting that “we have over 6,000 trucks for Gaza waiting in Jordan and Egypt,” but that access is blocked due to Israeli legislation. This comes amid a lack of U.S. funding among other important donors, projected to create a 200-million-dollar shortfall between late 2025 and early 2026.

However, Lazzarini added that UNRWA remains a lifeline by delivering 40% of all primary healthcare in Gaza, conducting 14,000 consultations daily, running immunization, nutrition, water quality testing, pest control, and sanitation operations serving hundreds of thousands, and providing psychosocial support integrated into education for more than 40,000 children.

For UNRWA’s future, particularly in the context of Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan, Lazzarini responded, “I believe that an agency like UNRWA can deliver for the population of Gaza. The workers we have can deliver our share, particularly in education.” This came as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated that UNRWA would “not be playing an active role in Gaza” under the emerging political framework.

In his appeal today to member states of the Fourth Committee, Lazzarini reiterated, “If we want to promote any lasting peace, we need justice and healing and to recognize the scope of the atrocities.” “To support the Agency is to invest in a political path forward,” he said, “and to stand in true solidarity with all those committed to a lasting peace.”