UNRWA staff cuts deepen in Gaza as Israel restricts critical aid access 

Gaza City — After 18 years as a teacher with an UNRWA-run school, Maryam Shaaban (name changed for safety reasons) fainted upon learning she was among 600 employees dismissed from their posts, the latest in a barrage of devastating blows borne out of Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged enclave.

Earlier in January, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) announced a series of harsh austerity measures, including a 20 percent salary cut for local staff in Gaza, reduced working hours, and the termination of contracts for employees based outside Gaza who had been previously placed on “exceptional leave”.

According to a letter sent to affected staff by UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, the agency said it was forced to take steps due to a severe financial shortfall in its 2026 budget of some $220m.

The deficit threatens the agency’s ability to meet core operational obligations, including staff salaries and the continuation of essential humanitarian programmes.

Shaaban, 52, who is currently displaced in Egypt with her injured husband, began working with the UN agency in 2007 as a teacher at one of the agency’s schools in Jabalia, northern Gaza.

Like most residents of Gaza, she suffered a heavy price during Israel’s genocidal war.

She was displaced with her family from Jabalia to Nuseirat, in central Gaza, where they took refuge in her brother’s home. In December 2023, they were hit by a direct Israeli air attack that killed 15 people and injured dozens.

Among the victims were Maryam’s 22-year-old daughter, her brother, and his entire family.

Israeli targeting of UNRWA

Sustained Israeli campaigns to decimate and denigrate the agency have escalated to unprecedented levels.

Israel has repeatedly accused the agency of being lenient or complicit with Palestinian armed groups, without providing verifiable evidence. These are allegations UNRWA has vehemently denied, stressing that it takes disciplinary action against any employee proven to be involved in wrongdoing.

In 2025, the Israeli Knesset passed legislation effectively banning the agency’s operations in areas it considers part of “Israeli sovereignty”, including occupied East Jerusalem, claiming the agency poses a security threat.

The agency rejected the law as illegal and said it places it in direct confrontation with Israeli authorities.

As of this month, the UN agency has recorded deaths in Israeli attacks of more than 380 of its staff members in Gaza since October 2023.

Earlier this month, Israel sent in bulldozers, partially destroying UNRWA’s headquarters in East Jerusalem. Israeli lawmakers and members of the far-right government were also present, according to Lazzarini, who said the attack came “in the wake of other steps taken by Israeli authorities to erase the Palestine Refugee identity”.

As a UN agency, it enjoys international legal status. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in January that he could take Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) if it does not repeal laws targeting UNRWA and return its seized assets and property.

‘By what law does this happen?’

Maryam herself sustained minor injuries in the Israeli attack, while five of her children also suffered injuries. Her husband was critically wounded in the neck.

In April 2024, she left Gaza as a medical companion to her spouse, who was referred for treatment at an Egyptian hospital. She was forced to leave behind the rest of her children in Gaza, including those who were wounded.

“It feels like leaving for treatment and escaping death has become a crime we are being punished for,” Maryam told Al Jazeera by phone, her voice breaking with tears.

“Wasn’t it enough that I spent all this time grieving for my injured children, being away from them and constantly worried about them while accompanying my husband in treatment? They added to our wounds by dismissing us from our jobs. By what law does this happen?”

For Maryam and many others who were displaced outside Gaza during the war, the blow was especially severe, as it followed a February 2025 decision to place them on “exceptional leave” despite the fact that many of them continued teaching remotely.

“All my children are injured and have metal plates in their limbs. They suffered immensely after my salary stopped,” said the mother of eight.

In the past two weeks, the crisis has extended to employees who remain in the Strip, after the agency decided to cut their salaries by 20 percent, a move that has further deepened their humanitarian suffering amid Gaza’s catastrophic conditions.

The financial shortfall comes amid a decline in international donations, which had long formed the backbone of UNRWA’s budget, particularly after several donor states froze their contributions following Israeli allegations against some of its employees.

UNRWA provides essential services to millions of Palestinian refugees, who make up about 70 percent of the Gaza population, including education, healthcare, and social assistance, playing a central role in maintaining a minimum level of stability amid repeated Israeli wars and restrictions on crossings.

Why Gaza first?

There has been widespread anger and protests among UNRWA staff in Gaza, both inside and outside the Strip, who argue that the measures disproportionately target Gaza compared with the agency’s other five areas of operation: the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

Mustafa al-Ghoul, head of the UNRWA staff union in Gaza and a dentist who has worked with the agency for 29 years, questioned why Gaza — the most devastated and afflicted area — was chosen as the first sacrifice.

“All the measures started in Gaza, as if Gaza is not already overwhelmed by death, destruction, and hunger,” he told Al Jazeera, standing in front of their partially destroyed headquarters in Gaza City.

Of some of the 600 dismissed Palestinian employees who were outside Gaza, the cutting off of their salaries and savings without prior notice, al-Ghoul said, “Some are sick. Some have cancer. Some were on official leave. Some lost their entire families. Some left to treat a grandchild, and then they are punished with dismissal and deprivation of their rights.”

“Gaza needs someone to heal its wounds. Gaza is dying. You see tents, death, and destruction everywhere. Gaza needs compassion, not dismissals and the drying up of its lifelines,” al-Ghoul appealed to UNRWA’s leadership.

‘UNRWA was the backbone of our survival’

Union warnings about the consequences of UNRWA cuts are already visible in the scarred daily lives of displaced Palestinians in Gaza, particularly in education, healthcare and food security.

This decline is reflected in the testimony of Jihan al-Harazin, 28, a mother of three, displaced in Gaza City, whose family relied almost entirely on the agency’s services.

“UNRWA was the backbone of our survival,  in health, education, and food. It provided everything,” she told Al Jazeera.

That reality, however, has changed dramatically since the war began.

“Now, there is nothing,” Jihan said, referring to the food aid that UNRWA has not been able to distribute for months.

Since October 2023, all humanitarian agencies, particularly the UN egency, have faced persistent obstacles in delivering aid to Gaza.

On multiple occasions, Lazzarini accused Israel of using humanitarian aid as a political tool. He said Israel is using aid to Gaza “as a weapon” to deepen civilian suffering.

‘A war waged on humanitarian work’ in Gaza

Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO) in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that UNRWA represents “the backbone of humanitarian work in the Palestinian territory”, stressing that its role extends beyond services to the political core of the refugee issue as one of the last pillars of humanitarian and social stability in Gaza.

“UNRWA carries a central cause for our people, the refugee cause itself. It was established by a UN General Assembly resolution and has operated for decades,” he said.

Al-Shawa said the agency is facing “continuous Israeli incitement” alongside Israeli bans on its operations in the occupied Palestinian territory, particularly Gaza, and the obstruction of humanitarian aid.

He warned that weakening UNRWA serves Israel’s agenda to erase the Palestinians’ right of return and compensation. That has been a key goal of the successive Israeli governments.

Linking the agency’s cuts to a broader campaign against humanitarian work in Gaza, al-Shawa noted Israel has faced global condemnation after a ban on dozens of international aid organisations working to provide life-saving assistance to Palestinians in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip came into effect.

“There is a war being waged against humanitarian work, including UNRWA, and we are paying the price for our commitment to international humanitarian law, a law the Israeli occupation refuses to uphold.”