The federal government announced last week it was suspending “additional funding” for a UN agency that supports Palestinians in Gaza and employs about 13,000 people there, as well as another 17,000 in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, the West Bank and elsewhere.
Ottawa took the step after Israel claimed staff members at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) played a role in the Hamas attack in Israel on Oct. 7.
So what is UNRWA? What does it do? And why is it under pressure now?
UNRWA exists only to serve Palestinian refugees displaced in the 1948 and 1967 wars
