Italy announced it would restore funding for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), months after suspending aid over Israeli allegations linking UN staff to the October 7 attack.
Rome joined several Western donors in resuming aid after an independent review, led by French former foreign minister Catherine Colonna, found that Israel had not provided any evidence to support its claims.
In response to the October 7 attack, Israel launched a brutal military offensive, resulting in the deaths of over 35,000 Palestinians. The attack, claimed by Hamas, killed up to 1,100 people and led to about 250 being taken captive inside Israel.
The Palestinian enclave remained in ruins after nearly eight months of Israel’s war.
Most key donors, including the United States and the European Union, resumed funding due to the severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza exacerbated by Israel’s restrictions on aid delivery.
“Italy decided to resume financing specific projects for Palestinian refugees, but only after rigorous controls ensuring that no funds support terrorism,” Antonio Tajani told Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa during a meeting on Saturday.
Tajani informed the visiting premier that the Italian government arranged new funding for the Palestinian population, totalling 35 million euros ($38m).
“Of this, five million will be allocated to UNRWA,” he said in a statement, with the remaining 30 million euros allocated to Italy’s “Food for Gaza” initiative in coordination with other UN aid agencies.
Mustafa also held talks with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who conveyed that Rome supported efforts towards a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza, the release of Israeli captives held by Hamas, and improved humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza.
The UNRWA, which coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, has been in crisis since January when Israel accused about a dozen of its 13,000 Gaza employees of involvement in the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. This led many nations, including top donor the US, to abruptly suspend funding to the agency, threatening its aid delivery efforts in Gaza and leaving millions at risk of hunger and possible death.
Created in 1949, the UNRWA employs about 30,000 people in the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
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Italy, or indeed any perceptive government, let alone western governments who we often see as meticulous and rigorous in their approach to issues, should never have suspended their contributions to UNRWA, in the first place, based on the evidently flimsy allegation made by Israel. Even if the now unproven Israeli allegation were true, suspending vital contributions based on the "sins" of under 0.01 percent of the Gazan population, did not make sense at all. More so when the alleger, Israel, had in the past been notorious for making unproven allegations , and was making this most recent false allegation, in the heat of war.
I hope this will serve as a lesson to all those government who precipitously withdrew their contributions, that they should always take Israeli allegations (including their now familiar and routine smear that: anyone who disagrees with them is an anti-semite and one who wishes the destruction of the State of Israel) with a heavy dose of salt, and more importantly, request for, and obtain, concrete evidence of whatever allegations Israel makes henceforth.