JERUSALEM – As the U.S.-backed Board of Peace advances its vision for rebuilding Gaza, the United Nations agency that has supported displaced Palestinians for decades appears to have no formal role. Yet Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s former commissioner-general, says private discussions suggest board members and other officials may be more willing to cooperate with the agency than their public statements indicate.
Israel has called for UNRWA to leave Gaza and repeatedly alleged that Hamas militants infiltrated the organization. The International Court of Justice has said those claims have not been substantiated. Despite the dispute, UNRWA remains Gaza’s biggest aid provider and continues to play a central role in delivering health and education services.
Lazzarini, whose tenure leading UNRWA ended earlier this year, told The Associated Press that members of the Palestinian technocratic committee intend to work with the agency. A separate U.N. official provided AP with meeting minutes showing that UNRWA and the committee have discussed cooperation on Gaza’s future plans.
A Board of Peace official also confirmed that members had held several meetings with UNRWA representatives. The agency’s era is finished, the official said, speaking anonymously because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
Still, the official acknowledged that UNRWA programs “may persist if they are serving Gazans well.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the remarks.
UNRWA remains Gaza’s largest humanitarian workforce
Nearly a year after the ceasefire, Gaza has seen little reconstruction. Israel continues to block the Palestinian committee selected by the Board of Peace from entering the territory to prepare for its eventual governing role, insisting that Hamas must disarm first. The board says its reconstruction strategy cannot fully begin until the committee is able to operate inside Gaza.
As a result, UNRWA remains one of the few major organizations operating at scale in Gaza, with a workforce far larger than that of any other U.N. agency or nongovernmental group. Lazzarini said the agency supports roughly half of Gaza’s public health system. His final day on the job was March 31, and he is preparing a book about his time at UNRWA for publication this year.
“They want to get rid of the agency, but at the same time they understand that eliminating it entirely today could inflict even more suffering on the population,” Lazzarini said.
The war began after the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. During the conflict, UNRWA temporarily expanded its responsibilities, helping coordinate the arrival and distribution of aid throughout the besieged territory. Israeli measures targeting the agency later curtailed that work, including restrictions barring UNRWA’s international employees and humanitarian supplies from entering Gaza.
Even so, Lazzarini said the agency has continued its essential services.
UNRWA still employs about 11,000 Palestinians in Gaza. According to the agency, its staff provide an average of 14,000 medical consultations each day, operate water and sanitation systems serving more than 1 million people, offer digital literacy and mathematics programs to over 280,000 children, and run temporary learning spaces for another 60,000 students.
The agency also helps ensure that relief supplies reach the people who need them, Lazzarini said. “If you want the vaccine to end up in the mouths of the children, you still need the workforce, the presence of an agency like ours.”
UNRWA was deemed essential to Gaza’s future planning
In public, however, UNRWA has not been presented as part of the Board of Peace’s Gaza strategy. During a board briefing Wednesday, members identified several U.N. agencies as potential reconstruction partners, but did not mention UNRWA.
Lazzarini said that privately, the Palestinian committee expected to govern Gaza has recognized that UNRWA’s expertise and operations will be needed for future planning.
Two senior U.N. officials and the Board of Peace official told AP that the board has met with UNRWA several times since the ceasefire took effect.
EXPLORE MORE: Daniel Hagari's Departure: Has He Exited the IDF? – NewsFinale
The two senior U.N. officials, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to brief the media, confirmed that UNRWA and the Palestinian committee held at least three meetings this year, including one as recently as this month. Two occurred while Lazzarini was still leading the agency. The officials said the committee, known as NCAG, and UNRWA remain in contact over technical issues.
Minutes from an April meeting obtained by AP indicate that the Palestinian committee said UNRWA could take the lead in rebuilding refugee camps. The document also noted that such work would carry significant political implications, calling it “also a highly political issue.”
Shortly before the end of his tenure, Lazzarini said, he spoke to Ali Shaath, a former Palestinian Authority deputy minister who leads the Palestinian committee.
“Basically, he said, ‘I don’t know how I can succeed without you’,” Lazzarini said. Shaath and a spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
An internal U.N. description of a Jan. 26 meeting in Cairo, held without UNRWA, said Shaath praised the agency, showed a clear intention to see it back on track and said the Palestinian committee’s system would largely build on its work.
The Tony Blair Institute, a Board of Peace partner, also asked for UNRWA’s help and spoke to UNRWA personnel, one senior U.N. official said. The institute did not respond to a request for comment.
At a pledging conference for UNRWA on June 30, the agency’s current acting chief, Christian Saunders, called it “vital” to efforts by the board and the Palestinian committee to move forward with the ceasefire.
But the Board of Peace official painted a different picture, saying the meetings focused on determining how UNRWA’s operations work in order to develop programs that are “far more efficient and accountable.”
“UNRWA’s days are over,” the official said. Still, its employees ”will remain if they pass vetting and are delivering on their mandate and not advancing ideology or Hamas interests.”
Lazzarini said it’s an “absurd contradiction” — the Board of Peace says UNRWA is not wanted while U.N. member countries “expect it to deliver.”
Lazzarini says he has faced personal attacks
UNRWA was established to help Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation.
In January 2024, Israel claimed, without providing proof, that hundreds of Palestinian militants worked for the agency and that over a dozen of its employees took part in the Oct. 7 attack.
Lazzarini said that he was never given written evidence to back up the allegations despite asking Israel and UN member states, but that he doesn’t regret his decision to fire the employees accused of taking part in the attack.
“I did because it was in the best interest of the agency and the population we were helping,” Lazzarini said, adding that he has faced “extraordinary vicious, heinous attacks on social media” as well as being accosted in the streets, “in Geneva and in New York” and shouted at by “pro-Israeli groups.”
His book, “A Witness to Gaza: What Cannot Be Erased,” will be published in French in October, with an English version to follow.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.