UNRWA: Annual Ministerial Meeting – Press Conference

25 September 2025

Hybrid press briefing by Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of UNRWA; along with H.E. Ayman H. Safadi, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; H.E. José Manuel Albares Bueno, Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation of the Kingdom of Spain; and H.E. Mauro Luiz Iecker Vieira, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federative Republic of Brazil following the annual ministerial meeting on UNRWA.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said, “If ultimately, we want to get rid of the Agency, it’s important that we genuinely and truly invest in peace.”

Today (25 Sep), Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), addressed the press along with Ayman H. Safadi, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and José Manuel Albares Bueno, Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation of the Kingdom of Spain.

Lazzarini said, “We had a week ago, last week, the Commission of Inquiry, which came to its conclusion, describing it as a genocide. It added, in fact, its conclusion to many other, I would say, scholars or NGOs, including Israeli NGOs, who basically concluded to the same. And it is true that Gaza today, people are experiencing hell in all its possible facets.”

He continued, “So, I think it’s very important to keep, you know, expressing total outrage on what’s going on, and of course, what part of our frustration is that this outrage has not yet been translated into meaningful action.”

He also said, “I also regularly remind this absurd or obscene reality where, on one hand, we have a fabricated famine, manmade famine in Gaza, and we have tons of goods waiting outside of Gaza. Only UNRWA as an agency, we have available the equivalent of three months of food covering the need of the population.”

About UNRWA’s financial situation, he said, “My call to the member states is to breach the situation between now and the end of the first quarter next year. Why is the first quarter next year? Because traditionally, we used to receive in January the US contribution and funding, which allowed the agency to start the year with a deficit. But now this won’t be possible, and the need for new money, in fact, is right now, $200 million.”

He added, “We also need now that we restore the humanitarian response as it was at the time of the ceasefire. It’s grotesque that it has been replaced by a system for which the main objective is to support, in fact, military and political objective – here I refer to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.”

He highlighted, “But if ultimately, we want to get rid of the Agency, it’s important that we genuinely and truly invest in peace, because the only alternative to an agency like ours are functioning, empowered, capacitated, future Palestinian institutions within a two state solutions.”

Answering a question, he said, “If we talk about the Gaza Humanitarian form, you know, we went from hundreds of distribution points to four located in the south, nearby military position, forcing, in fact, people to move from where they are. This is not the kind of impartial, independent type of humanitarian assessment based on the notion of humanity being provided to the most vulnerable one.”

Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs José Manuel Albares Bueno stressed, “Mobilization of much needed funds is right now the priority for all of us. We cannot allow – We cannot afford – UNRWA to collapse.”

Ayman H. Safadi, Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, said, “If we care about humanity, our humanity, we have to support on UNRWA, because nobody will be able to help Palestinians like on UNRWA will be able to. UNRWA now is facing tremendous challenges. On the ground, its staff is being hunted. It has no money to continue its operations, and that is why we are here to call on all member states of the United Nations to translate their political support for UNRWA expressed so articulately in the renewal of its mandate, to translate that support into action.”

He also said, “Nobody has been allowed in terms of journalists to go to Gaza and see what is going on there. But once journalists are allowed to go into Gaza, once they see how much destruction there is, once they see how many children have nobody to go to, once they realize the impact of 600,000 Palestinian kids not going to school for two years in a row, they’ll realize how much we UNRWA.”

Related content:

• Statement by UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini at the Ministerial Meeting on UNRWA during High-Level Week at the 80th UNGA – Question of Palestine