But pre-emptive aid suspensions only validate fake conspiracy narratives about the EU funding terrorists. Reviewing the funding to verify that it does not support Hamas or any violent activity is entirely legitimate. Gaza has been driven into a state of high dependency on international support – more than 80% of its population rely on humanitarian aid to meet their basic needs – mainly as a consequence of an ongoing 16-year blockade and a series of devastating Israeli military offensives against Hamas in the densely populated enclave. If the agency goes bust, 300,000 children attending UNRWA schools in Gaza will end up on the street or attending Hamas-run schools instead. ![]() ![]() About a third of the total goes to UNRWA, the UN agency providing education and healthcare to millions of Palestinian refugees, which is already mired in a chronic financial crisis due to dwindling donor support. It helps cover the costs of Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem, finances grants to small innovative enterprises, co-funds desalination plants in Gaza and supports NGOs. It contributes to PA social allowances for thousands of the poorest Palestinian families in both Gaza and the West Bank. The EU’s money funds teachers, doctors and other public servants employed by the PA in the West Bank. Photograph: Fatima Shbair/APĪs Israel now proceeds with an all-out military retaliation against the Gaza Strip, resulting in yet more civilian bloodshed and destruction, Palestinians urgently need more aid, not less. Incidentally, it is also the same logic that leads Hamas to hold all Israeli civilians responsible for the Israeli occupation, dispossession and violence against Palestinians.Īn Israeli airstrike on Gaza City, 11 October 2023. Stopping aid follows the same logic as the collective punishment that is now being inflicted on Gaza by Israel. Most of all, however, it would hit ordinary Palestinians. By further weakening the PA and increasing the prospect of its collapse in the West Bank, suspending the funds would be a gift to Hamas. Freezing assistance would instead punish the EU-backed Palestinian Authority (PA), which is Hamas’s chief rival. The EU and its member states do not fund Hamas. If the goal is to punish Hamas, stopping European aid makes no sense. That suspending aid was even considered, and remains a possibility, is mind-boggling. The ultimate responsibility for further EU aid delivery lies with the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, who has a reputation for tight centralisation of power within the Brussels executive, but allowed a surprising degree of leeway to the Hungarian commissioner’s freelancing. A meeting of EU foreign ministers on Tuesday made clear that an overwhelming majority is opposed to freezing EU funds (ironically including some of those whose governments have suspended their bilateral aid). With the purse strings in the hands of Várhelyi, who has repeatedly blocked funds for Palestinians, uncertainty remains over further EU aid disbursements. Várhelyi – who was nominated by the Hungarian premier Viktor Orbán, a close ally of Benjamin Netanyahu – is in charge of EU relations with neighbouring countries and rarely misses an opportunity to position himself as Israel’s staunchest ally in Brussels. The EU will now review its aid, not formally suspend it. The Hungarian commissioner’s solo, and seemingly unauthorised, move was later reversed after a backlash from several governments, along with objections from the EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, and the European Council president Charles Michel. Providing around €300m annually, the EU is the occupied territories’ largest international source of aid. The scale of terror against Israel was “a turning point”, Várhelyi wrote. ![]() On Monday, the EU commissioner Olivér Várhelyi unexpectedly declared – in a social media post – a freeze on EU development assistance to the Palestinians worth €690m. Four European Union member states – Austria, Germany, Denmark and Sweden – have announced they will review and temporarily suspend their bilateral development aid to the Palestinian territories. Justified shock and outrage over the Hamas atrocities in Israel are driving some European politicians into ill-judged responses that risk exacerbating this crisis.
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