The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns the decision by the Government of Sweden to stop funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in 2025. This decision directly affects UNRWA’s ability to provide its relief services to around 6 million Palestinian refugees, especially in the Gaza Strip that has been under genocide for 14 consecutive months.
PCHR’s Director and Lawyer Raji Sourani has described this decision as “a politically-driven decision serving Israel’s insidious campaign to dismantle UNRWA as a prelude to end the cause of Palestinian refugees and deny their right to return that would have devastating consequences on the Palestinian refugees now and in the future.”
The decision comes only after the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted on 05 December 2024 Resolution (A/ES-10/L.32) with 159 Member States in favor reaffirming UNRWA’s mandate in all its fields of operation until the realization of a just solution to the question of the Palestine refugees. The resolution has also stressed UNRWA’s vital role in being the backbone of all humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip and affirmed that no organization can replace or substitute the agency’s capacity and mandate to provide services.
The decision comes at a time Israel is leading an immense campaign for years to delegitimize and undermine UNRWA and its mandate aimed at dismantling the agency and eventually bringing the question of the Palestine refugees and their inalienable right to return to an end.
Since the onset of its genocidal war in Gaza, Israel has stepped up its attacks on UNRWA leading a full-blown media and diplomatic campaign to discredit the agency and accuse its staff of participating in the October 7th attack. As a result, many donors have decided to suspend their funding to UNRWA and thereby crippled its relief operations. Moreover, last October, the Israeli Knesset passed 2 bills banning UNRWA from operating in Israel.
UNRWA and its facilities have been under Israeli Occupying Forces’ (IOF) direct bombardment that has targeted hundreds of UNRWA schools sheltering thousands of displaced people, clinics providing essential health services to the refugees in the Gaza Strip and vehicles bearing UN flags. Moreover, 220 of UNRWA staff members have been killed since the beginning of the genocidal war.
Sweden is one of UNRWA’s largest donors with an annual contribution of more than 40 million dollars. This decision to defund UNRWA is a strong blow and has serious impact on the agency’s operations and services provided to the Palestinian refugees. The decision will have devastating consequences on the people of the Gaza Strip who have been suffering for more than a year now in the genocidal war. UNRWA is the backbone of the international relief response to around 2.3 million Palestinians with 90 per cent of whom displaced and completely relying on scarce international aid that IOF have limitedly allowed entry into the Gaza Strip.
PCHR calls on the Government of Sweden to reconsider its decision of defunding UNRWA and pursue its longstanding solidarity and support to UNRWA over decades.
