Palestinian aid agency funding will stay frozen until reports received, says UK

Countries including the US, UK, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands and Australia will not take a decision on ending the suspension of funding to the Palestinian relief works agency Unrwa until they have seen two interim reports on the organisation, the UK Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell has said.

Mitchell’s remarks put back a decision on the funding for weeks, and runs counter to the decision by Sweden, Canada and the EU to resume funding the agency.

The minister, speaking to British MPs, admitted that the international community was divided on the issue, but said he was confident that Unrwa had enough money to survive. Mitchell met Philippe Lazzarini, the Unrwa director, in London last week.

The two reports to which Mitchell referred are due from an internal UN inspectorate and from the former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, who was in Israel this week to seek evidence from the Israeli government on its claims that at least 12 Unrwa staff had been involved in the 7 October attack on Israel that killed 1,200 Israelis. The claims led many western countries to suspend funding.

Colonna is due to present her interim report in late March and a final report a month later. Israel was this week expected to share with her intelligence on Hamas tunnels in and around Unrwa facilities, terrorist attacks by Unrwa employees, and the use of Unrwa sites to launch rockets at Israel.

The quality of the evidence Israel has presented to the UN report is disputed. Relations between Unrwa and Israel are on the point of collapse, with Cogat, the Israel agency responsible for coordinating aid with Unrwa, accusing Lazzarini of lying about blockages to aid entering Gaza.

Unrwa, for its part, has said some of the evidence of its staff being involved in the 7 October attacks was based on false confessions extracted from staff in detention who had been imprisoned and beaten by Israelis.

Mitchell also rejected calls for a ban on arms exports to Israel, saying: “The current judgment of the British government is that Israel has the capacity and intent to comply with international humanitarian law.” He said the position was kept under review. His assurance did not cover the outcome of the Israeli armed offensive, as opposed to its intent, but the fact that no arms export licence has been withdrawn suggests the UK believes Israel is complying with international law. He added that Israel had increased the average number of trucks entering Gaza from a daily average of 97 in February to 162 in March.

David Cameron, the foreign secretary, has said Israel should allow 500 trucks into Gaza daily. The chair of the foreign affairs select committee, Alicia Kearns, who had been in Egypt over the weekend, urged the UK government to press Israel on an offer by its spokesperson Eylon Levy to increase aid by 100 trucks a day.

In her letter setting out Levy’s offer she wrote: “The government of Israel is stating there are no issues getting aid into Gaza. This is not the assessment I have reached, nor that of the international aid organisations I have met, nor governments with whom I have spoken. You have been equally clear in your recent statements and media interviews that Israel can increase the aid deliveries if it chooses to do so.”

Mitchell made no specific mention of the Israel offer, but said the easiest and best way for aid to enter Gaza was by road, not by air or sea.