Rights group warns of internal dismantling of UNRWA
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- Beirut-based watchdog warns of internal dismantling of UNRWA through recent management decisions.
- Cuts, contract terminations, and reduced working hours seen as accelerating agency collapse.
A Beirut-based refugee rights group on Sunday warned of what it described as a systematic dismantling of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East from within, citing a series of recent administrative decisions.
Salary cuts, job losses cited
The independent Group 302 for the Defense of Refugee Rights said UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini had taken “dangerous and arbitrary” steps since the start of 2026 under the pretext of a financial crisis, after what it called a failure to dismantle the agency from outside.
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In a statement, the group said the measures included cutting UNRWA staff salaries in Gaza and the West Bank to 20 percent of their original pay, and dismissing guards at the agency’s Amman headquarters, replacing them with a foreign private company in what it described as direct privatization of services.
Group 302 said the decisions also involved terminating the contracts of 650 UNRWA employees from Gaza who are currently outside the enclave and had been on unpaid exceptional leave since February 2025. It added that all job confirmations across departments and regions had been frozen until further notice.
Reduced hours across regions
According to the statement, UNRWA has also reduced weekly working hours in its five fields of operation starting February one, 2026, from 37.5 hours to 30 hours, accompanied by a 20 percent salary cut.
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The group warned that the speed and continuity of these steps would inevitably lead to UNRWA’s internal dismantling. It said the trajectory aligned with comments made in 2018 by ‘Israel’ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said after meeting then US President Donald Trump that “UNRWA must be dismantled because it perpetuates the refugee issue.”
Earlier proposals recalled
Group 302 recalled what it described as earlier attempts by Lazzarini to dismantle the agency externally, including an April 2022 call to transfer UNRWA services to other UN agencies, and a February 17, 2025 proposal to gradually end UNRWA’s mandate within a political process backed by an international coalition by shifting services to “capable and ready Palestinian institutions”.
It also cited a letter sent by Lazzarini in late December 2025 in which he wrote, “We affirm that UNRWA cannot be replaced except by a viable Palestinian state that addresses the plight of Palestinian refugees.”
Sharp condemnation
The group concluded that the current measures represent a clear, incremental process of dismantling UNRWA from within, accusing the commissioner-general of pursuing policies that place him, in its words, on “the black record of hostility to humanity”.
