Gaza City — The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has taken another severe turn as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) moves to slash staff numbers, reduce salaries, and scale back operations amid mounting Israeli restrictions and a deepening financial crisis.
The UN agency, long considered the backbone of civilian survival in Gaza, has confirmed the dismissal of 600 staff members, a 20 percent salary cut for remaining local employees, and reduced working hours across multiple departments. The measures come as Israel continues to restrict humanitarian access to the besieged enclave, worsening conditions for a population already devastated by more than two years of war.
UNRWA officials say the cuts are unavoidable, citing a projected $220 million budget shortfall for 2026, a deficit that threatens the agency’s ability to pay salaries and sustain essential services such as education, healthcare, and food assistance.
A teacher’s collapse reflects wider despair
For Maryam Shaaban, a veteran UNRWA teacher with nearly two decades of service, the announcement was unbearable.
After 18 years teaching at an UNRWA-run school in Jabalia, northern Gaza, Maryam collapsed upon learning she was among those dismissed. Her name has been changed for safety reasons.
The 52-year-old educator, now displaced in Egypt with her critically injured husband, described the decision as another blow layered onto personal tragedy.
“I fainted when I heard,” she told Al Jazeera. “It felt like everything we sacrificed meant nothing.”
Maryam joined UNRWA in 2007, dedicating her career to teaching children in one of Gaza’s most impoverished refugee camps. Like most Palestinians in Gaza, her life was upended by Israel’s war.
After being displaced from Jabalia to Nuseirat in central Gaza, her family took shelter in her brother’s home. In December 2023, an Israeli air strike hit the house directly, killing 15 people.
Among the dead were her 22-year-old daughter, her brother, and his entire family. Maryam and five of her children were injured; her husband suffered a critical neck wound.
“Leaving Gaza became a punishment”
In April 2024, Maryam was forced to leave Gaza to accompany her husband for urgent medical treatment in Egypt. Several of her injured children were left behind.
What followed, she says, felt like punishment.
“It’s as if leaving for medical treatment became a crime,” she said, her voice breaking. “I was already grieving, already terrified for my children, and then they dismissed us from our jobs.”
Earlier in February 2025, UNRWA placed employees who had left Gaza on what it termed “exceptional leave”, even though many continued teaching and working remotely. Their salaries were later halted, and contracts terminated without prior warning.
“All my children have metal plates in their bodies from injuries,” Maryam said. “When my salary stopped, everything collapsed.”
UNRWA confirms austerity amid funding collapse
In a letter sent to staff earlier this month, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini confirmed the sweeping austerity measures, describing them as a last resort driven by dwindling donor contributions and escalating political pressure.
The agency has faced severe funding cuts since several donor countries froze or reduced contributions following Israeli allegations that some UNRWA employees were linked to armed groups — claims the agency says remain unsubstantiated.
UNRWA insists it has strict neutrality mechanisms and disciplines any staff member proven to have violated its code of conduct.
Despite this, the financial strain has worsened. Officials warn that without urgent international funding, UNRWA’s core operations may become unsustainable.
Israeli pressure on UNRWA intensifies
The staff cuts come amid an unprecedented campaign by Israel against UNRWA.
Israel has repeatedly accused the agency of posing a security threat and, in 2025, passed legislation effectively banning UNRWA operations in areas it considers under “Israeli sovereignty,” including occupied East Jerusalem.
Earlier this month, Israeli bulldozers partially destroyed UNRWA’s headquarters in East Jerusalem, an incident Lazzarini said was part of a broader effort to “erase the Palestine refugee identity”.
Since October 2023, at least 380 UNRWA staff members have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza, according to agency records — the highest death toll of UN personnel in any conflict in modern UN history.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned Israel that continued targeting of UNRWA could prompt legal action at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), stressing the agency’s protected status under international law.
Dr Mustafa al-Ghoul, a dentist with UNRWA for 29 years, who heads the agency’s staff union, is currently leading protests against its recent decisions
“Why is Gaza always the first sacrifice?”
Anger has grown among UNRWA employees over what they see as disproportionate targeting of Gaza staff, compared to the agency’s other fields of operation in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
Mustafa al-Ghoul, head of UNRWA’s Gaza staff union and a dentist with 29 years of service, questioned why the most devastated region was hit first.
“All these measures began in Gaza,” he said. “As if Gaza isn’t already drowning in hunger, destruction, and death.”
Standing outside UNRWA’s partially destroyed headquarters in Gaza City, al-Ghoul listed the stories behind the numbers.
“Some of those dismissed are cancer patients. Some lost entire families. Some were on official medical leave. Some left to save a child’s life — and were punished for it.”
“Gaza needs healing,” he added. “Not dismissals. Not the drying up of its last lifelines.”
Civilians feel the impact immediately
For displaced families, the consequences are already visible.
Jihan al-Harazin, a 28-year-old mother of three sheltering in Gaza City, said UNRWA once kept her family alive.
“UNRWA was everything — healthcare, education, food,” she said. “It was our backbone.”
Today, that support has largely vanished.
“We haven’t received food aid for months,” Jihan said. “There is nothing.”
Aid agencies say Israeli restrictions on crossings, inspection delays, and outright denials of entry have crippled humanitarian operations since October 2023.
Lazzarini has repeatedly accused Israel of weaponising aid, saying humanitarian assistance is being used as leverage rather than allowed to reach civilians.
“A war on humanitarian work”
Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO) in Gaza, warned that weakening UNRWA threatens not only services but the political and legal foundations of refugee protection.
“UNRWA is not just an aid agency,” he said. “It represents the refugee cause itself, established by a UN General Assembly resolution.”
Shawa said Israel’s actions form part of a wider campaign to dismantle humanitarian work in Gaza and undermine the right of return.
“This is a war being waged against humanitarian action,” he said. “And civilians are paying the price.”
With Gaza’s population facing mass displacement, famine-like conditions, and a shattered health system, humanitarian groups warn that further erosion of UNRWA’s capacity could push the territory into an even deeper humanitarian abyss.
As staff are dismissed, salaries cut, and aid blocked, many Palestinians fear that the agency once synonymous with survival in Gaza is being deliberately suffocated — at a time when it is needed most.
