Board of Peace has met with UNRWA despite saying it has no Gaza role,
agency's ex-chief says
[September 25, 2026]
By JULIA FRANKEL
JERUSALEM (AP) — As the U.S.-created Board of Peace pushes ahead with
plans to rebuild Gaza, it has said there’s no place for the U.N. body
that for decades has provided support to displaced Palestinians. But the
agency’s last chief says that behind the scenes, board members and
others have been more open to working with the U.N. agency for
Palestinians than it seems.
Israel wants the agency known as UNRWA out of Gaza and has repeatedly
accused it of being infiltrated by Hamas militants, allegations the
International Court of Justice says have not been substantiated. And yet
UNRWA remains the territory’s largest aid provider, playing a key role
in health and education.
Philippe Lazzarini, who led UNRWA until earlier this year, told The
Associated Press that members of the Palestinian technocratic committee
want to work with the agency. Another U.N. official shared with AP
minutes from meetings where UNRWA and the committee discussed
collaborating on plans for Gaza.
A Board of Peace official confirmed that board members had met multiple
times with UNRWA officials.
And while the agency’s days are over, its programs “may persist if they
are serving Gazans well,” the official added, speaking on condition of
anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Israel's foreign ministry did not respond when asked about these
remarks.
UNRWA has more workers in Gaza than anyone else
There’s been no reconstruction in Gaza, almost a year since the
ceasefire. Israel still prevents the entry of the Palestinian committee
chosen by the Board of Peace to eventually govern the strip, saying
Hamas must first disarm. The committee says it needs to be inside the
strip to activate Gaza plans.
That's left UNRWA on the ground in Gaza, with far more workers than any
other U.N. agency or nongovernmental organization. It props up about
half of Gaza’s public health system, said Lazzarini, whose last working
day was March 31. He plans to publish a book this year about his tenure.
“They want to get rid of the agency, but on the other hand they know
that if you get completely rid of the agency today, it might have a
further additional devastating impact on the population,” Lazzarini
said.
During the war, sparked by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on
Oct. 7, 2023, UNRWA temporarily took on a larger role, coordinating the
entry and distribution of aid into the besieged Palestinian territory.
Israel's attacks on the agency neutered that role, banning UNRWA
international staff and humanitarian aid from entering Gaza.
But UNRWA's core programs remained, Lazzarini said.
It still has around 11,000 Palestinian employees in Gaza. They conduct
about 14,000 medical appointments daily, maintain water and waste
management systems for over a million Palestinians, run digital literacy
and math programs for over 280,000 children and staff temporary learning
spaces for 60,000 more, UNRWA says.
UNRWA makes sure aid reaches people, Lazzarini said. “If you want the
vaccine to end up in the mouths of the children, you still need the
workforce, the presence of an agency like ours.”
UNRWA was told it's vital in planning Gaza's future
Publicly, the agency has not been included in the Board of Peace’s
planning for Gaza. At Wednesday's board briefing, members named various
U.N. agencies as partners in the territory's reconstruction, but not
UNRWA.
However, behind the scenes, the Palestinian committee that will
eventually govern Gaza acknowledged that UNRWA is necessary for
planning, Lazzarini said.
Two senior U.N. officials and the board official told the AP the board
had met multiple times with UNRWA since the ceasefire was signed.
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Commissioner-General of the U.N. agency for Palestinian Refugees
Philippe Lazzarini speaks during an interview with The Associated
Press in Beirut, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were
not authorized to brief the media, confirmed at least three meetings
between UNRWA officials and the Palestinian committee this year,
most recently this month. Two took place during Lazzarini’s tenure.
Shortly before the end of his tenure, Lazzarini said, he spoke to
Ali Shaath, a former Palestinian Authority deputy minister who leads
the Palestinian committee.
“Basically, he said, ‘I don’t know how I can succeed without you’,”
Lazzarini said. Shaath and a spokesperson did not respond to
requests for comment.
An internal U.N. description of a Jan. 26 meeting in Cairo, held
without UNRWA, said Shaath praised the agency, showed a clear
intention to see it back on track and said the Palestinian
committee's system would largely build on its work.
The Tony Blair Institute, a Board of Peace partner, also asked for
UNRWA’s help and spoke to UNRWA personnel, one senior U.N. official
said. The institute did not respond to a request for comment.
At a pledging conference for UNRWA on June 30, the agency's current
acting chief, Christian Saunders, called it “vital” to efforts by
the board and the Palestinian committee to move forward with the
ceasefire.
But the Board of Peace official painted a different picture, saying
the meetings focused on determining how UNRWA’s operations work in
order to develop programs that are “far more efficient and
accountable.”
“UNRWA’s days are over,” the official said. Still, its employees
”will remain if they pass vetting and are delivering on their
mandate and not advancing ideology or Hamas interests.”
Lazzarini said it's an “absurd contradiction" — the Board of Peace
says UNRWA is not wanted while U.N. member countries “expect it to
deliver.”
“We continue to emphasize that UNRWA is indispensable,” Jordan’s
foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, told journalists Thursday after over
50 countries attended a ministerial meeting on the agency at U.N.
headquarters.
Lazzarini says he has faced personal attacks
UNRWA was established to help Palestinians who fled or were driven
out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its
creation.
In January 2024, Israel claimed, in many cases without providing
evidence, that hundreds of Palestinian militants worked for the
agency and that over a dozen of its employees took part in the Oct.
7 attack.
Lazzarini said that he was never given written evidence to back up
the allegations despite asking Israel and UN member states, but that
he doesn't regret his decision to fire the employees accused of
taking part in the attack.
“I did because it was in the best interest of the agency and the
population we were helping," Lazzarini said, adding that he has
faced “extraordinary vicious, heinous attacks on social media” as
well as being accosted in the streets, "in Geneva and in New York”
and shouted at by "pro-Israeli groups.”
His book, “A Witness to Gaza: What Cannot Be Erased," will be
published in French in October, with an English version to follow.
___
Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations
contributed to this report.
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