Australia to restore funding for UNRWA, pledges to increase Gaza aid

Australia will restore funding to the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians, weeks after the agency lost hundreds of millions of dollars in support following Israeli allegations that some of its Gaza-based staff participated in the Oct. 7 attack.

The Australian government also pledged Friday to increase aid for the besieged enclave, with Foreign Minister Penny Wong expressing horror at the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Australia's move follows Sweden, the European Commission and Canada in reinstating funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, which had seen its international funding frozen while the allegations were investigated.

The best available current advice from agencies and the Australian government lawyers is that UNRWA is not a terrorist organization, Wong told reporters Friday in Adelaide while she announced the aid package.

"(We have) been working with a group of donor countries and with UNRWA on the shared objective of ensuring the integrity of UNRWA's operations, rebuilding confidence, and so importantly, ensuring aid flows to Gazans in desperate need.

Australia, alongside 15 international partners, froze funding to UNRWA in January, leaving the agency which employs roughly 13,000 people in Gaza and is the main supplier of food, water and shelter there on the brink of financial collapse.

A small number of the agency's staff were fired following the accusations.

Israel has claimed that 450 UNRWA employees were members of militant groups in Gaza, though it has provided no evidence.

Wong also pledged an additional 4 million Australian dollars ($2.6 million) to UNICEF to provide urgent services in Gaza, and a C17 Globemaster plane will also deliver defense force parachutes to help with the U.S. led airdropping of humanitarian supplies into the enclave, which is on the brink of famine, according to the United Nations.

The U.S. is also scrambling to open a new humanitarian aid corridor by building a floating dock off the coast of Gaza so aid can flow by sea.

Hamas' Oct. 7 attack, in which about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and around 250 taken hostage, sparked Israel's retaliatory invasion of Gaza that has killed more than 31,000, according to local health officials, left much of the enclave in ruins and displaced some 80 per cent of Gaza's 2.3 million people.