‘Dire' financial crisis forces UNRWA to fire 571 Gazan staff

The UN's beleaguered agency for Palestinian refugees said that a “dire” financial crisis had this week forced it to fire hundreds of Gazan staff who had left the territory.

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“On Tuesday, 571 local UNRWA staff, outside Gaza, were informed that they were being separated from the agency with immediate effect,” a spokesperson told AFP in an email.

For more than seven decades, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees has provided aid and assistance to Palestinian refugees across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

But the agency has seen the voluntary contributions it relies on dwindle as it has become the focus of increasingly harsh Israeli criticism and attacks, causing what the spokesperson called an “unprecedented financial crisis.”