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JERUSALEM -- As the U.S.-created Board of Peace pushes ahead with plans to rebuild Gaza, it’s said there’s no place for the U.N. body that for decades has provided support to displaced Palestinians. But the agency’s most recent head says that behind the scenes, board members and others have been more open to working with the U.N. agency for Palestinians than it seems.
Israel wants the agency out of Gaza and has repeatedly accused it of being infiltrated by Hamas militants, allegations that the International Court of Justice says have not been substantiated. And yet UNRWA remains the territory’s largest aid provider, playing a key role in health and education.
Philippe Lazzarini, who was head of UNRWA until earlier this year, told The Associated Press that members of the Palestinian technocratic committee want to work with the agency. Another U.N. official shared with AP minutes from meetings where UNRWA and the committee discussed collaborating on plans for Gaza.
A Board of Peace official confirmed that board members had met multiple times with UNRWA officials. The agency’s days are over, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
But its programs “may persist if they are serving Gazans well,” the official added.
Israel's foreign ministry did not respond when asked about these remarks.
There’s been no reconstruction in Gaza, almost a year since the ceasefire. Israel still prevents the entry of the Palestinian committee chosen by the Board of Peace to eventually govern the strip, saying Hamas must first disarm. The Board says it can activate its plans for Gaza in earnest once the committee gets inside the strip.
That's left UNRWA on the ground in Gaza, with far more workers than any other U.N. agency or nongovernmental organization. It props up about half of Gaza’s public health system, said Lazzarini, whose last working day was March 31. He plans to publish a book this year about his tenure.
“They want to get rid of the agency, but on the other hand they know that if you get completely rid of the agency today, it might have a further additional devastating impact on the population,” Lazzarini said.
During the war, sparked by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, UNRWA temporarily took on a larger role coordinating the entry and distribution of aid into the besieged Palestinian territory. Israel's attacks on the agency neutered that role, banning UNRWA international staff and humanitarian aid from entering Gaza.
But UNRWA's core programs remained, Lazzarini said.
It still has around 11,000 Palestinian employees in Gaza. They conduct an average of 14,000 medical appointments daily, maintain water and waste management systems for over a million Palestinians, run digital literacy and math programs for over 280,000 children and staff temporary learning spaces for 60,000 more, UNRWA says.
UNRWA makes sure aid reaches people, Lazzarini said. “If you want the vaccine to end up in the mouths of the children, you still need the workforce, the presence of an agency like ours.”
Publicly, the agency has not been included in the Board of Peace’s planning for Gaza. At Wednesday's board briefing, members named various U.N. agencies as partners in the territory's reconstruction, but not UNRWA.
However, behind the scenes, the Palestinian committee that will eventually govern Gaza acknowledged that UNRWA is necessary for planning, Lazzarini said.
Two senior U.N. officials and the board official told the AP the board had met multiple times with UNRWA since the ceasefire was signed.
The senior U.N. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, confirmed at least three meetings between UNRWA officials and the Palestinian committee this year, most recently this month. Two took place during Lazzarini’s tenure. Both officials said the NCAG and UNRWA were in ongoing communication on technical matters.
A readout of the April meeting, obtained by the AP, says the Palestinian committee stated UNRWA could lead efforts to reconstruct refugee camps, noting, “this is also a highly political issue.”
Shortly before the end of his tenure, Lazzarini said, he spoke to Ali Shaath, a former Palestinian Authority deputy minister who leads the Palestinian committee.
“Basically, he said, ‘I don’t know how I can succeed without you’,” Lazzarini said. Shaath and a spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
An internal U.N. description of a Jan. 26 meeting in Cairo, held without UNRWA, said Shaath praised the agency, showed a clear intention to see it back on track and said the Palestinian committee's system would largely build on its work.
The Tony Blair Institute, a Board of Peace partner, also asked for UNRWA’s help and spoke to UNRWA personnel, one senior U.N. official said. The institute did not respond to a request for comment.
At a pledging conference for UNRWA on June 30, the agency's current acting chief, Christian Saunders, called it “vital” to efforts by the board and the Palestinian committee to move forward with the ceasefire.
But the Board of Peace official painted a different picture, saying the meetings focused on determining how UNRWA’s operations work in order to develop programs that are “far more efficient and accountable.”
“UNRWA’s days are over,” the official said. Still, its employees ”will remain if they pass vetting and are delivering on their mandate and not advancing ideology or Hamas interests.”
Lazzarini said it's an “absurd contradiction" — the Board of Peace says UNRWA is not wanted while U.N. member countries “expect it to deliver.”
UNRWA was established to help Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation.
In January 2024, Israel claimed, without providing proof, that hundreds of Palestinian militants worked for the agency and that over a dozen of its employees took part in the Oct. 7 attack.
Lazzarini said that he was never given written evidence to back up the allegations despite asking Israel and UN member states, but that he doesn't regret his decision to fire the employees accused of taking part in the attack.
“I did because it was in the best interest of the agency and the population we were helping," Lazzarini said, adding that he has faced “extraordinary vicious, heinous attacks on social media” as well as being accosted in the streets, "in Geneva and in New York” and shouted at by "pro-Israeli groups.”
His book, “A Witness to Gaza: What Cannot Be Erased," will be published in French in October, with an English version to follow.
