United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said on Tuesday it was important "to pursue peace efforts to realize the vision of two States, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security."
Guterres was speaking at a pledging conference in New York for the UN agency that helps Palestinian refugees as US President Donald Trump's administration launched in Bahrain a $50 billion economic formula for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
It is not clear whether the Trump administration plans to abandon the "two-state solution," which involves the creation of an independent Palestinian state living side by side with Israel. The Trump administration has consistently refused to commit to it, keeping the political stage of its peace plan a secret.
At the pledging conference in New York, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency – which helps five million registered Palestinian refugees across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank and Gaza – raised some $110 million to help continue its operations, UNRWA chief Pierre Krähenbühl said.
He told reporters that there was no clash between the UNRWA pledging event and conference in Bahrain because "we deal with the realities of today."
Most of the refugees UNRWA helps are descendants of about 700,000 Palestinian Arabs who were driven out of their homes, fled fighting or were encouraged by Arab leaders to leave in the 1948 war that led to Israel's creation and claim a right of return to the lands they left.
Hatem Hamdouna, a 14-year-old student from Gaza and member of the UNRWA student parliament, addressed ambassadors and diplomats at the pledging conference in New York on Tuesday.
"Since I was born, I experienced three wars," he said. "However, during the darkest times, UNRWA education was my only hope for a better future. … UNRWA education is just like oxygen, it keeps us alive."
The United States – formerly UNRWA's largest donor – halted its funding to the agency in 2018, deeming its fiscal practices "irredeemably flawed."
UNRWA was able to fill the gap of several hundred million dollars and Krähenbühl said that, while each year is a struggle, he was encouraged that donor momentum had not been lost.
UNRWA's mandate is due to come up for renewal later this year in the General Assembly, where support for the agency has been traditionally strong and the United States would likely face an uphill battle to change or cancel the operation.
"We actually have probably the best support base in overall political terms that we've ever had in the history of this institution," Krähenbühl said.
