Erdogan says UNRWA to open office in Turkey, calls for more support for agency

ANKARA (Reuters) -The United Nations' Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA will open an office in Ankara, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday, urging Muslim countries to give the agency more support after Israel banned it.

Israel last year banned UNRWA, saying it had employed members of Palestinian militant group Hamas who took part in the October 2023 attacks on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

Turkey has called Israel's assault on Gaza genocide and its move to ban UNRWA a violation of international law, particularly amid worsening humanitarian conditions in Gaza, which has been reduced to rubble with millions displaced.

Addressing foreign ministers of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in Istanbul, Erdogan said opening an Ankara UNRWA office would deepen Turkey's support for the agency.

"We must not allow UNRWA, which plays an irreplaceable role in terms of taking care of Palestinian refugees, to be paralysed by Israel. We expect our organisation and each member state to provide financial and moral support to UNRWA to thwart Israel's games," Erdogan said.

A Turkish diplomatic source said Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini were expected to sign an accord on the sidelines of the OIC meeting in Istanbul on establishing the office.

Turkey has given UNRWA $10 million a year between 2023 and 2025. In 2024, it also transferred $2 million and sent another $3 million from its AFAD disaster management authority.

Israel has handed responsibility for distributing much of the aid it lets into Gaza to a new U.S.-backed group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates three sites in areas guarded by Israeli troops. The U.N. has rejected the GHF operation saying its distribution work is inadequate, dangerous and violates humanitarian impartiality principles.

Previously, aid to Gaza's 2.3 million residents had been distributed mainly by U.N. agencies such as UNRWA with thousands of staff at hundreds of sites across the enclave.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Hugh Lawson)