Canada and Sweden are resuming funding for the main United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, citing the spiraling humanitarian catastrophe there and saying that the agency had taken steps to improve accountability amid accusations that some of its employees had links to Hamas.
The countries were among more than a dozen that suspended payments to the aid organization, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, known as UNRWA, after accusations in January by Israel that a dozen of its 13,000 employees in Gaza had been involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel or their aftermath.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that it was "a serious mistake” for the two countries to restart financing the U.N. agency. "It constitutes tacit consent and encouragement on the part of the governments of Canada and Sweden to continue to ignore the involvement of UNRWA employees in terrorist activity,” the statement said.