{"id":1030123,"date":"2026-08-28T20:06:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T20:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1030123\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T20:06:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T20:06:16","slug":"finland-not-to-renew-unrwa-multi-year-funding-agreement-worth-millions-of-euros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1030123\/","title":{"rendered":"Finland not to renew UNRWA multi-year funding agreement worth millions of euros"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finland has chosen not to renew its multi-year funding agreement with the United Nations<\/a> Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) after it expires this year, Finnish Foreign Trade Minister Ville Tavio announced on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The multi-year agreement, which was signed in March 2023, included Finland contributing a total of 20 million euros to UNRWA<\/a>. It followed a previous 2019-2022 agreement, throughout which Finland provided 5 million euros to the agency each year.<\/p>\n

In a post on X\/Twitter, Tavio clarified that his country will not reduce its funding for humanitarian efforts in Palestinian territories and will instead contribute to organizations like the World Food Programme.<\/p>\n

Tavio previously ordered Finland to suspend its contributions to the agency in 2024 over allegations that UNRWA employees<\/a> participated in Hamas\u2019s October 7, 2023 massacre against Israel.<\/p>\n

In a January 2024 press release, Tavio asserted that his country \u201cmust make sure that not a single euro of Finland’s money goes to Hamas or other terrorists\u201d and urged that the allegations be seriously investigated.<\/p>\n

In March 2024, Tavio reinstated the funding, citing alleged UN efforts to improve oversight of UNRWA as the reason for continuing Finland\u2019s contributions to the agency. At the time, Tavio noted that faults in UNRWA’s risk management remained and acknowledged that information regarding UNRWA employees’ ties to Hamas had not yet been fully uncovered.<\/p>\n

The Foreign Ministry praised Finland\u2019s decision to discontinue the funding agreement in an X post on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is good to see more countries recognizing the undeniable truth in light of the conclusive evidence of UNRWA employees\u2019 involvement in the October 7 massacre and UNRWA\u2019s inseparable links to Hamas,\u201d the ministry stated.<\/p>\n

\u201cUNRWA is a hotbed of terrorism. It is part of the problem, not part of the solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the 2024 allegations, UNRWA has been plagued by additional accusations and investigations, with multiple employees being found to have participated in the October 7 massacre and maintained ties to terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).<\/p>\n

Most recently, the US State Department recommended that three UNRWA staffers be disbarred<\/a> for their participation in the October 7 massacre and for holding hostages kidnapped during the massacre.<\/p>\n

According to the US Agency for International Development\u2019s Office of Inspector General, the staffers were all former school teachers. Two of them are alleged to be Hamas terrorists who were involved in the taking and holding of hostages. The third teacher was identified as a PIJ terrorist accused of infiltrating Israel during the October 7 massacre.<\/p>\n

Danielle Greyman-Kennard contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finland has chosen not to renew its multi-year funding agreement with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1030124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[440,116,4527,99,50,20864,1206,36738],"class_list":["post-1030123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-europe","tag-finland","tag-hamas","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-the-october-7-massacre","tag-united-nations","tag-unrwa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117174939559129827","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1030123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1030124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1030123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1030123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1030123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}