UNRWA's Gaza director accuses Israel of letting food rot at border

Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Gaza

The expelled director of the UN's Palestinian relief agency (UNRWA) in Gaza has accused Israel of allowing food to rot as it blockades the enclave.

Sam Rose left Gaza in March after the ceasefire agreement broke down, and Israel re-imposed its siege of the strip. He has not been able to re-enter due to Israel's ban on UNRWA, which came into effect in January.

The length of the blockade was “unprecedented”, he said. Aid that had been stalled at the Egyptian border crossing to Gaza was incurring storage fees and food was “rotting”.

"This blockade is coming into effect after 19 months of war ... and the most rapid descent of a population into severe food insecurity in recorded history," he said.

The situation has been compounded by Israel's outlawing of UNRWA, which prevents Israeli officials from engaging with members of the agency, including its aid convoys that previously entered the strip through the Rafah Crossing.

“The ban on UNRWA activities on the sovereign territory of Israel … shouldn’t impact our operations in Gaza, because Gaza is not the sovereign territory of Israel. But the reality is that these laws impact everything that we do,” Mr Rose said at the British Palestine Project annual conference in London.

Mr Rose has been meeting ministers and diplomats in the UK to warn them of the ban’s acute humanitarian implications which are already being felt on the ground.

He was optimistic about the UK government’s continued political and financial support for the agency, despite domestic pressures causing the UK to scale back on overseas aid. The UK “are doing lots behind the scenes”, he told The National. “They’re doing the right thing, but in an environment where aid budgets have been reduced.”

Three UNRWA schools in East Jerusalem were closed down on Thursday by Israeli security forces as a result of the ban, prompting a joint statement from the UK, the EU and other European governments condemning the move.

The UK’s government restored funding to UNRWA after it came to power in July last year, and has been a vocal critic of a new Israeli law that prevents the agency from operating in Israel and, by extension, Gaza.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer met Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa in April, and announced a £101 million support package for the Palestinian Authority. His government has committed £51 million in support for UNRWA since coming to power.

But Mr Starmer has also come under increasing pressure from MPs within its Labour party to take more urgent action against Israel, in the form of sanctions or a more extensive arms embargo.

The UK is being asked to “convene a coalition of like-minded states” that would pressure Israel and demand an immediate unconditional ceasefire in Gaza, by the British Palestine Project, UK charity founded by former British diplomats, who issued a statement on Thursday.

UNRWA 'essential'

Mr Rose said UNRWA could not be replaced and its institutions, developed over decades and integrated in Palestinian lives, “can only really be taken over by a functioning state”.

The agency's presence in Gaza was essential for its healthcare and education systems, which had been built through “billions” of international funding, including from the UK, he said.

“If you’re a kid in an UNRWA shelter, if the teacher sees that you’re not doing too well, they’ll refer you to a medic and refer you to a social worker or someone who can get you cash assistance. Other organisations don’t work in that integrated kind of way,” he told The National.

Another key concern is the future of the agency’s archive, compiled over decades, which is vital to chronicling the Palestinian refugee crisis.

“Refugees are registered with UNRWA for services, and that registration archive constitutes a key part of Palestinian culture and heritage that will inform any compensation or settlement process,” he said.

A portion of its administrative records were held in Gaza when the war broke out and has since been moved to an undisclosed location.

“We have those records and we have the archive. They’re all digital. We managed to get them out of Gaza during the war,” Mr Rose said.

Impact of the ban

Israel has tried to end UNRWA’s programme since it accused some agency members of participating in the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.

A UN inquiry last year said Israel had not submitted evidence to support its allegations, but made key recommendations aimed at reforming the agency in the long term.

Then in January, the Israeli government approved a new law that would prevent Israeli officials from engaging with UNRWA and, by extension, aid agencies that work with it.

“The intent of the law is clear,” Mr Rose said. “It’s to dismantle UNRWA as an organisation and undermine the rights of return of the Palestinians and the international legal frameworks for the Palestinian issue.”

Since it came into effect, UNRWA staff have been “routinely harassed and abused” and were banned from leading missions into Gaza city.

The ban was compounded by Israel’s siege on Gaza since it resumed it military operations in March, after a six-week ceasefire broke down.

The agency had managed to continue operating in a diminished capacity, with 25,000 children learning in UNRWA schools that were not under bombardment and “hundreds of thousands” more shifting to online learning.

But Mr Rose warned that the “informal learning” was simply to give “children a bit of structure” and a “sense of normality in these awful conditions”.

Families that went home during the ceasefire were now back in tents. Until a week ago, soup kitchens providing free meals could supply one million meals a day, but they are now down to 400,000 a day, he said. The average Gazan was surviving on six litres of water, “not enough to flush a toilet”, he added.