Britain’s International Development Minister Anneliese Dodds will attend a humanitarian conference in Cairo on Monday, where she will meet with international partners to discuss how to urgently alleviate suffering in Gaza, as part of a three-day visit to the region.
The Minister will announce £19 million of funding for Gaza, including £12 million in funding to the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and World Food Programme (WFP).
To demonstrate the UK’s ongoing commitment to achieving stability in the region and to discuss how to improve economic stability for all Palestinians, Minister Dodds will then travel to Israel and to Palestinian Authority-assigned areas of Judea and Samaria, said the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office in a statement announcing Dodds’ visit.
The visit will include an announcement on £7m of new UK funding to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which will “support the international response to deliver essential services such as food, shelter and healthcare as winter conditions add to the already dire humanitarian situation,” the statement added.
“The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. Gazans are in desperate need of food, and shelter with the onset of winter. The Cairoconference will be an opportunity to get leading voices in one room and put forward real-world solutions to the humanitarian crisis,” said Dodds.
“The UK is committed to supporting the region’s most vulnerable communities, pledging additional funding for UNRWA, and to supporting the Palestinian Authority reforms,” she added, calling on Israel to “immediately act to ensure unimpeded aid access to Gaza.”
UNRWA, long criticized for cooperating with Hamas, has come under increased scrutiny as its workers have been found to have been directly involved in Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
In November, Israel officially cancelled its 1967 agreement with UNRWA which formed the legal basis for relations between the State of Israel and UNRWA, after the Knesset approved legislation halting UNRWA's activities in Israel.
Britain was one of a host of countries which paused funding to UNRWA after Israel’s revelation that its terrorists took part in the October 7 massacre. In July, Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced that the UK will lift the pause on funding to the agency.
During her visit to the region, Dodds is expected to meet counterparts both in Israel and the PA, to “discuss the need to remove these impediments, bring about a ceasefire, free the hostages and find a lasting solution to the conflict.”
The Minister will also confirm the UK has provided £6m each to the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the Office for Coordinated Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) pooled humanitarian fund. This has gone towards lifesaving health, food, water, sanitation and protection services for Palestinian Arabs.
While in Israel, Dodds will also meet the families of UK and UK-linked hostages in Israel and will reiterate that the UK continues to exercise every possible diplomatic lever to see the hostages immediately and unconditionally released.
Concluding the visit, said the statement, the Minister will highlight that “it is in the long-term interests of the Israelis, Palestinians and the wider region to agree to a ceasefire deal urgently and bring this devastating conflict to an end.”