Switzerland is UNRWA’s ninth-largest donor nation, contributing more than $21 million in funding in 2023.
By Joshua Marks, JNS
The Swiss House of Representatives voted on Monday to immediately halt payments to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) over its ties to terrorism.
The decision, which still needs to be approved by the Swiss Senate, was the latest back and forth between the two governmental chambers over funding to the agency, and mirrors similar moves taken last year.
The 99-88 vote to suspend funding was adopted along with a separate motion calling on Switzerland to directly support aid efforts by other organizations in the Gaza Strip.
“This is a very powerful signal and a continuing vote of no-confidence in UNRWA,” Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch, told JNS on Tuesday.
Neuer, who testified before the Swiss parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee this spring, said the vote was a “slap in the face” to Swiss UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini, who had lobbied furiously to prevent it from happening.
The head of the Geneva-based watchdog organization said that the dispute would not be resolved for several months yet, and would likely relate to next year’s funding.
Bombshell intel report causes only temporary freeze
An Israeli intelligence report released earlier this year showed that at least a dozen UNRWA employees actively participated Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre and that the agency has hundreds of “military operatives” belonging to Hamas and other terrorist groups on its payroll.
The revelations prompted 17 countries—led by the United States and Germany, UNRWA’s biggest donors—including Switzerland to suspend funding.
Nearly all have since resumed funding due to concern over the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
“The freeze was performative following the U.S. lead, and not something they wanted to do,” said Neuer. “It did not reflect a policy decision or true concern.”
The United States—UNRWA’s largest donor, accounting for some 30% of the agency’s budget—has frozen its donations until at least next year.
Switzerland is UNRWA’s ninth-largest donor nation, contributing more than $21 million in funding in 2023.
In May, the Swiss government approved a contribution of CHF10 ($12 million) to UNRWA for emergency aid.
Diplomatic battle
The atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7 have placed renewed international focus on UNRWA’s terrorism ties, leading to calls from across the Israeli political spectrum to break with the organization and work with alternative aid groups.
Meanwhile, the heads of the agency—backed by the outgoing E.U. foreign policy chief Josep Borell—successfully placated most international donors with a contested U.N. investigation into its alleged wrongdoing.
UNRWA, which the U.N. established in 1949 to carry out relief and work programs for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled their homes during the 1948 War of Independence, defines refugee status as being hereditary.
As a consequence, the number of Palestinian refugees registered with the organization has mushroomed from 750,000 in 1950 to nearly six million today.
The main U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, which cares for the rest of the refugees in the world, has no such policy.
Earlier this year, a former legal adviser to UNRWA told the Knesset that Israel can prevent the agency from operating in Gaza and should be using the current international spotlight on its malign activities to plan for its closure, regardless of any continued foreign funding it receives.
Three months ago, the Swiss House of Representatives also rejected a motion to recognize Palestinian statehood.