One year ago, I published two articles exposing the deeply entrenched discrimination by UNRWA’s senior management against its Palestinian staff. Today, new and disturbing developments have emerged: ones that point not only to continued injustice but to an alarming pattern of decisions by the Commissioner-General and Western White Leadership within UNRWA that appear to serve the interests of the Israeli government and its lobbies at the direct expense of UNRWA Palestinian staff.
The ultimate trajectory?
The dismantling of UNRWA itself, particularly in Gaza.
Before revisiting the longstanding denial of rights to UNRWA Palestinian staff, it is essential to unpack the latest evidence.
UNAT Tribunal Slams UNRWA’s Abusive Use of “Neutrality” to Silence Palestinian Staff
A United Nations Appeals Tribunal (UNAT) judgment issued yesterday has delivered a stark and critical blow to UNRWA’s interpretation and enforcement of its so-called neutrality framework. In plain terms: UNRWA’s senior management, largely composed of Western officials, has been using this framework unlawfully to persecute its own Palestinian staff, often under the pretext of “anti-Semitism.” The judgment exposes the illegality and disproportionate severity of disciplinary measures imposed on Palestinian staff in ways that are unprecedented across the UN system.
This ruling shines a spotlight on the extreme and frankly, obsessive approach UNRWA has taken, positioning itself as one of the only UN agencies willing to weaponize neutrality as a tool of suppression. And the motivation? To appease the Israeli government and its lobbying networks.
The UNRWA Apartheid: Salaries for the West, Silence for Gaza
Equally disturbing is the Commissioner-General’s recent decision to suspend the pay of more than 560 Gaza staff and their families, while continuing to pay international (primarily Western) staff, even those hired under short-term surge contracts. In March 2025, Palestinian staff who had self-evacuated outside Gaza for survival were threatened with either returning to a warzone or being placed on “exceptional leave without pay.”
Less than a week ago, the Commissioner General enacted his threat and suspended the pay of some 560 Gazan staff and their families. The affected staff and their families, already displaced, were suddenly left without income or support.
This is not a logistical issue but rather a policy of abandonment. No Gaza staff member can return to the Strip today, even if they wished to. Yet UNRWA’s top leadership is punishing them for fleeing a warzone by cutting off their livelihoods.
Contrast this with the treatment of international staff: those who were evacuated were immediately offered remote working arrangements under the Alternate Working Arrangements (AWA) policy. They continue to receive full pay and benefits, working comfortably from their home countries and surrounded by the warmth of their immediate families. Even temporary international “surge staff,” recruited using the Gaza Emergency Flash Appeal funds to work inside Gaza, were not let go after evacuation: they, too, were shockingly placed on remote work and continue to be paid handsomely.
How is it legally and morally justifiable to offer full pay and protection to temporary international staff, brought in only to support Gaza operations, while denying the same to 560 Palestinian core staff whose work and knowledge sustain UNRWA’s education and relief operations?
Many of the suspended Gaza staff were educators who had developed alternative methods to continue basic education amid the conflict. Yet rather than support their efforts, the Commissioner-General is enacting policies that align more closely with the stated goals of the Israeli government: the dismantling of UNRWA and its mandate.
Publicly, the Commissioner-General says otherwise. But as we all know, in human rights, it is not the statements but the actions that define the truth.
Diplomats Get D-1 Contracts. Gazans Get Graves. UNRWA’s Moral Ledge
Despite receiving millions under the Emergency Flash Appeal for Gaza, the Commissioner-General is diverting funds away from Palestinian staff and toward bolstering UNRWA’s alleged diplomatic presence. Just today, UNRWA announced it is recruiting of “top-notch representatives” (yes you read that correctly…) for New York and Geneva at the D-1 level: positions that serve Western advocacy goals rather than Palestinian survival.
Why does UNRWA need more Western directors stationed far from the frontlines, getting paid huge salaries from the Gaza Flash Appeal (money that was destined for the Palestinians and not the Westerners) when its Gaza operations are collapsing and its staff are being systematically killed and buried under the rubbles?
Speaking of money and funding, a timely reminder.
Let us now return to what UNRWA owes to its Palestinian staff in Gaza.
As previously documented, UNRWA has systematically excluded its Palestinian staff from coverage under two key UN policies that are universally applied to other UN staff in conflict zones:
- Malicious Acts Insurance Policy (MAIP), which provides compensation for death and permanent disability due to acts of war.
- Security Evacuation and Entitlements Policies, which ensure that local staff are treated with parity during crises.
Despite being fully eligible under both, UNRWA’s Palestinian staff have been denied access to these protections for years. Why? Mainly because they are Palestinians, they don’t know their rights, and it comes with a significant cost to UNRWA.
At the time of my earlier reporting, 103 UNRWA staff had been killed by Israel.
Today, that number is estimated to exceed 700.
700 UNRWA humanitarian workers performing their duties under the United Nations Flag.
Yet UNRWA has refused to release an official death count, let alone compensate the families. Each family is entitled to approximately $120,000 in compensation: an essential lifeline under MAIP. Not one of these families has received a cent.
Instead, the Emergency Appeal funds are being used to finance the recruitment of international staff who are now sitting comfortably abroad under AWA status. At the same time, 560 Gazan families are left destitute.
What may be the most disturbing aspect of all: Gazan families have stopped reporting the deaths of their UNRWA-employed relatives. Why? Because they have discovered that once UNRWA is notified of a staff member’s death, their salary is immediately terminated, thereby cutting off the last thread of support for their surviving family.
UNRWA is punishing the families of the dead.
Let that sink in.
A few days ago, at the UNHQ’s noon briefing in New York, a journalist asked the following question to the Secretary-General’s spokesperson
“Question: what about UN staffers inside Gaza? I mean, those Palestinian UN staffers? What’s the situation for them now? Are they have the same situation with other Gazan people?
Spokesman: I mean, our Palestinian colleagues who work for the United Nations — most of them work for UNRWA — are doing two things. They’re continuing to work to help civilians in Gaza. And they’re also like the people they’re trying to help, just trying to survive. They’re facing the same challenges as the rest of the population, while trying to work and maintain operations with the dwindling stocks that we have.”
But no mention was made of the 700 UNRWA staff killed. No mention was made of the UNRWA Palestinian families left without income or support. No commitment was made to compensate the dead. No acknowledgment of the systemic discrimination was uttered.
Instead, UNRWA continues to present a façade of solidarity with Palestinians, while actively undermining them from within.
Western staff are recruited, promoted, and protected.
Palestinian staff are suspended, unpaid, and buried.
This structural discrimination and racism from within UNRWA’s top leadership is enabling a system where Westerners are paid to advocate for the very people they are simultaneously disenfranchising. It is funneling donor money into Geneva offices and diplomatic posts instead of to the bereaved and the displaced. And it is doing all of this while flying the flag of neutrality.
What is clearly impossible to ignore right now is that UNRWA’s senior Westen led management is complicit in the structural dismantling of its own mandate by elevating Western political optics over Palestinian human lives.
You cannot claim to protect when your policies kill.
You cannot claim justice while burying your own staff.
There is no policy framework in the world that can excuse the abandonment of 700 of your own.
