Portugal announces extra million-euro donation to UNRWA despite accusations

Portugal’s acting government said Friday that it will continue to fund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and announced that it will send an additional one million euros, despite Israel’s accusations of terrorism against some of its employees.

Speaking to Portuguese media from Brussels on Friday, Foreign Minister João Gomes Cravinho said he had met with UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini and was “completely confident and satisfied with the explanations” provided by him, “especially since this is not something structural within UNRWA.” “UNRWA’s work is essential and therefore we will continue to support UNRWA,” he stressed and announced that Portugal will provide one million euros in the coming weeks as a “special donation,” in addition to the four million announced at the end of 2023 and already delivered.

“This additional million will now come in different circumstances, in a context in which some countries have announced that they will freeze their funding,” he explained. Gomes Cravinho also said he would be raising the agency’s current financial situation at the informal meeting of foreign ministers scheduled for Saturday. Portugal’s announcement comes a day after the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, warned that hundreds of thousands of people would die if funding was cut off at a summit of EU leaders on Thursday.

“If you cut funding to UNRWA, you are punishing the entire Palestinian people. There is no alternative to UNRWA (…) if you want to keep these people alive. So no collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” he stressed. More than 15 countries announced that they would be suspending their contributions to UNRWA after Israel accused about a dozen of its members of being involved in the Oct. 7 attacks by the Islamist group Hamas against Israel. EFE cch/ics/mcd