UNRWA

Palestinian bodies in a shipping container, near the Karem Abu Salem/Kerem Shalom Crossing in Gaza, January 20, 2024. (Courtesy of Ariel, a UN worker)

Calculated chaos: Inside Israel’s transfer of Palestinian bodies to Gaza

Humanitarian workers describe a haphazard and deliberately opaque system for returning dead and living Gazans during the first months of the genocide — one that helps explain why thousands are still missing.

By Frances Brogan July 15, 2026

Israeli forces operating in the Nur Shams refugee camp, near Tulkarem, January 12, 2026. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

Paving military roads, Israel prepares permanent control of West Bank camps

A year after their expulsion from the Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams camps, refugees wait not only to return, but to reclaim the rights the camps preserved.

By Majd Jawad January 19, 2026

Eight-month-old Salam Wadi at an UNRWA clinic in Gaza City, July 9, 2025. (Hussein Owda/UNRWA)

Aid for Gaza’s starving children is right at the gates. Let it in

Israel is blocking 6,000 UNRWA trucks from entering Gaza while children die of hunger. The world can still prevent further catastrophe if it chooses to act.

By Juliette Touma July 15, 2025

Latest

Palestinians protesting job cuts at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the West Bank city of Nablus, on March 15, 2018. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

Politicizing Palestinian refugees won’t make them go away

By defunding UNRWA and attempting to define Palestinian refugees out of existence, the Trump administration is only shooting the messenger. UNRWA is a product, not the source, of the Palestinian refugee problem. By Zena Agha Last Friday, the Trump administration announced that the United States would no longer fund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency…

By +972 Magazine September 7, 2018

US President Donald Trump with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prior to Trump departure to Rome at the Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv on May 23, 2017. (Kobi Gideon / GPO)

Trump cannot simply erase the Palestinian right of return

The American president’s decision to defund the Palestinian refugee agency is an attempt to accomplish something Israeli leaders have been trying for the better part of a century. By James Zogby First, the Trump Administration “took Jerusalem off the table.” Now, in an especially dangerous display of recklessness, it has announced its intention to do…

By +972 Magazine September 5, 2018

Shada Ardaa, 9, was wounded by an Israeli air strike in Rafah, Gaza strip, An-Najah hospital, Nablus, West Bank, August 5, 2014. (Ahmad Al-Bazz/Activestills.org)

Medical care for children in Gaza headed for the dark ages

What ails the Gaza Strip is not an incurable disease. We know the antidote that could immediately begin rebuilding the structural determinants of children’s right to life and health. By Priscilla Wathington Children in the Gaza Strip today are more likely to develop health problems than ever before but less likely to access medical care. And…

By +972 Magazine April 5, 2018

Palestinians take part in a protest against aid cuts, outside the United Nations' offices in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, January 28, 2018. (Abed Rahim Khatib/ Flash90)

The problem with international aid to Palestine

The Palestinian people have become dependent on foreign humanitarian aid to survive, but its adverse effects are strangling their economy. By Liora Sion International aid to the Palestinians is very generous. The United Nations is aiming to raise approximately $540 million per year for the five million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. That’s a…

By +972 Magazine March 20, 2018

Palestinians in the southern Gaza city of Rafah receive monthly food rations from an UNRWA distribution center, January 23, 2017. (Abed Rahim Khatib/ Flash90)

‘UNRWA shouldn’t be held hostage to politics’

As the U.S. slashes the Palestinian refugee agency’s budget, Netanyahu is urging it be abolished altogether. Some believe that shuttering UNRWA would somehow make the Palestinian refugee problem extinct. ‘Not true,’ says the agency’s director in Washington. The Trump administration announced this week that it had cut by more than half its contribution to the…

By Samer Badawi January 18, 2018

Palestinian burning a picture of US President Donald Trump during a protest against US President Donald Trump's latest decision to recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in Rafah, in the Southern Gaza Strip on December 8, 2017. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

Trump’s threats against the Palestinians should worry Israel

The Netanyahu government is celebrating Trump’s recent declaration and threats against the Palestinians as victories, but Jerusalem should wait before opening the champagne. The Trump Administration on Tuesday threatened to withhold millions of dollars in aid that it sends to the Palestinians each year, accusing them of not wanting to negotiate a peace deal with Israel. Nikki Haley,…

By Haggai Matar January 3, 2018

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Photo: Kobi Gideon / GPO)

Netanyahu’s Israel is a cauldron waiting for the next explosion

While Israel proceeds along its merry way, each day building more settlements and demolishing more Palestinian homes, it is far from being the secure and stable dream Netanyahu envisioned. By James J. Zogby For half of the past two decades Benjamin Netanyahu has served as prime minister of Israel. Whatever his ultimate fate (given the…

By +972 Magazine September 18, 2017

Palestinian refugees 'making their way from Galilee in October-November 1948' (Fred Csasznik, copyright expired)

Addressing the root of the Palestinian refugee problem

Cash shortages at UNRWA distract from the wider issue: it is the lack of a diplomatic solution, not funding, that leaves Palestinian refugees vulnerable. In the end, it was the catastrophe that wasn’t. For a nervy few weeks it seemed a severe funding shortage would delay the school year for half a million children reliant on the…

By Natasha Soffer-Roth September 24, 2015

A member of the Jahalin Bedouin sits on the remains of his demolished home in Al Eizariya, West Bank, March 18, 2009. (photo: Anne Paq)

In five-year high, Israel demolishes 143 Palestinian structures in single month

Israel demolished 143 Palestinian structures in August, the highest such total in five years. The wave of demolitions came amid severe heat waves and has left children homeless as they start the new school year. Israel demolished 143 Palestinian structures in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the month of August, the highest such total in five…

By Natasha Soffer-Roth September 5, 2015

A mother with her newborn daughter in a displaced persons' camp in Khuza'a, Gaza Strip, November 7, 2014. (Anne Paq/Activestills)

Mortality rate increases among Gaza infants for first time in 50 years

With Gaza’s infant mortality rate up for the first time in 50 years, health officials worry that a continued blockade, and lack of sufficient neonatal care, may cause the upward trend to continue. For the first time in 50 years, Gaza’s refugee population has seen an increase in the number of infant deaths, according to…

By Natasha Soffer-Roth August 9, 2015