Saudi Arabia today announced a donation of $40 million (nearly €37 million) to the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), which Israel is at loggerheads with.

The funds will support UNRWA’s humanitarian assistance efforts in the war-torn Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas, providing “food to more than 250,000 people and tents to 20,000 families,” the Center said in a statement. humanitarian aid and King Salman relief (KSrelief).

“It is crucial to respond to the desperate needs of the people of Gaza,” who are at risk of starvation according to the UN, added KSrelief head Abdullah al-Rabiah.

Israel accuses UNRWA of employing “more than 450 terrorists” in Gaza and says 12 of its workers were directly involved in the unprecedented October 7 attack by Hamas on Israeli soil that killed 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

UNRWA, which employs about 30,000 people in the occupied Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, has terminated its staff members who were allegedly involved in the October 7 attack.

However, fifteen countries, mainly the United States, had suspended their funding at the end of January following the Israeli accusations. Since then several of them have resumed paying their money to the UN agency.

UNRWA is the backbone of humanitarian aid in Gaza, where nearly 32,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in retaliatory Israeli military operations, according to Hamas’ health ministry.

According to the Saudi statement, UNRWA director Philippe Lazzarini said Riyadh’s donation “reflects the solidarity the kingdom has always shown to the Palestinians.”