Paper details

Paper authors	Kubra MERTEK MOHAMED
In panel on	‘Real’ Humanitarian Governance: Accountability, Advocacy, and Alternatives
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

This paper analyses the 2024 UNRWA funding crisis as a paradigmatic case of how the principle of ‘neutrality’ in humanitarian governance is weaponised as a form of epistemic violence. It interrogates how Western states, particularly the US, EU, and UK, mobilised discourses of accountability and neutrality not as principles of action, but as geopolitical instruments aligned with Israeli state interests. Following Israel’s post-October 7 allegations implicating UNRWA personnel in Hamas attacks, these donors abruptly suspended funding, deepening the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and threatening the survival of both the agency and the Palestinian people. This withdrawal exemplifies a racialised double standard in humanitarian governance, whereby Israeli state violence is normalised and unaccountable, while Palestinian institutions are delegitimised and defunded. Furthermore, the crisis reveals how donor conditionalities function as epistemic violence, erasing and delegitimising Palestinian knowledge and framing UNRWA as inherently ‘compromised’. Meanwhile, emerging support from non-Western donors such as Qatar and Turkey exemplifies alternative solidarities challenging Eurocentric governance paradigms. Through discourse analysis of donor statements, UN documents, and UNRWA testimonies, this study discusses how humanitarian governance has become a site of epistemic struggle, where formal mechanisms sustain structural violence despite ongoing grassroots humanitarian efforts.

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