File Photo: UNRWA headquarters in Amman. Photo courtesy of UNRWA
"We have signed the final agreement with the government of Turkey, and this time the parliament has also endorsed it," he told reporters, adding that it was "a question of weeks" until it opened.
The move came a day after UNRWA said it was going through a "dire" financial crisis that had forced it to fire 571 of its Gaza staff who had continued working for it after being evacuated from the territory ravaged by Israel's genocidal war.
UNRWA said the "extremely difficult" decision was down to a financial crisis sparked by a fall in the voluntary contributions it relies on following a campaign of increasingly harsh criticism and attacks by Israel.
Lazzarini has repeatedly said Israel is conducting a “concerted campaign aimed at destroying UNRWA, describing the effort as part of a broader political push to erase the question of Palestinian refugees and their right of return.
UNWRA was established in 1949 by a UN General Assembly resolution with a mandate to provide temporary assistance to Palestinian refugees in the aftermath of 1948, when Zionist militias forcibly displaced 750,000 Palestinians.
In 1967, Israel occupied Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, creating another wave of forcible displacement and exacerbating the refugee problem. The same year, Israel signed a formal agreement recognising UNRWA activity in the occupied Palestinian territories and committing not to interfere in the affairs of the UN agency in the humanitarian field.
For more than seven decades, the agency has provided aid and assistance to Palestinian refugees across Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria, and continues to operate there, "despite many, many constraints," Lazzarini said.
The UNRWA serves approximately 5.9 to over 6 million registered Palestinian refugees across its five fields of operation (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip) as of 2024-2025 statistics.
The number of people who rely on UNRWA's services at any given time can fluctuate, especially in war zones like Gaza, where nearly the entire population of approximately 2 million people has relied on UNRWA for necessities and critical humanitarian aid since the start of the current Israeli war in October 2023.
UNRWA provides essential services such as education, healthcare, relief and social services, camp infrastructure, and emergency assistance to eligible beneficiaries.
Israel said in November 2024 that it had terminated the agreement facilitating the work of the agency.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has rejected Israel’s claims that employees of the UNRWA were affiliated with Hamas or other resistance armed groups.
The Fourth Committee of the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in November 2025, on assistance to Palestinian refugees and the renewal of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) mandate till June 2029, with 149 countries voting in favour, 10 against, and 13 abstaining.
* This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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