Episode description
Scott Paul, associate director of peace and security at Oxfam America, talks about why 20 aid organizations have issued a public letter protesting a pause in Western funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the main aid agency in Gaza offering services that the aid groups says are indispensable in the current crisis. Oxfam, Save the Children, the AFSC and other aid groups working in Gaza say cutting aid to UNRWA will have devastating effects on what is already a humanitarian catastrophe. The suspension of funds to UNRWA by 18 countries, including the United States, the Uniked Kingdom, Germany and others, follows still-unverified allegations that 12 of UNRWA's employees in Gaza may have links to the Hamas attacks on Oct 7. UNRWA employs 13,000 people in Gaza and 30,000 throughout the region and may be forced to cease operations by the end of February unless funding is resumed. The pause in aid to UNRWA come on the heels of the World Court ordering Israel to take measures to prevent genocide in Gaz and to provide more humanitarian aid. Margot Patterson talks to Chimène Keitner, an expert on international law and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Law at the University of California-Davis, about that ruling and its significance and impact.