Restore UNRWA Funding: Photos of 18th Gadigal-Sydney Rally Against Gaza Genocide

A key theme to this week’s Stop the Genocide in Gaza rally, meeting for the 18th week in a row, had a focus on restoring UNRWA funding, as mass starvation has commenced in the Gaza Strip, along with the mass slaughter, and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees is essential to providing aid.

Australia, along with the US, the UK and about seven other nations, cut financing UNRWA based on an Israeli document suggesting more than ten of its staff were involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks, which, when major media players reviewed the report, was found to provide no evidence.

Israel circulated these unsubstantiated claims that led to staff being sacked due to their seriousness, the day after the International Court of Justice ruled that Netanyahu’s military campaign in Gaza is “plausibly” genocide and ordered genocidal acts to cease.

Foreign minister Penny Wong told the ABC that she’d decided to cut UNRWA funding based on the UN aid agency taking the claims seriously, even though she’d been provided no proof, and UNRWA told Channel 4 it was mitigating risk by sacking staff immediately and hadn’t expected this response.

“I don’t think any of us have anticipated this huge number of our friendly donors, who have been our partners for decades on end, to suspend the funding so-so quickly, like they’ve done,” said UNRWA communications director Juliette Touma.

“I mean, in just over 24 hours, nine of our donors suspended funding to UNRWA. I also think, none of us had anticipated that this would be done in the middle of a war and to the largest humanitarian organisation who is responding.”

Sydney Criminal Lawyers attended Sunday’s rally, calling for the restoration of funding and an end to the bloodshed.