Israel and the United Arab Emirates have been working together to eliminate the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) without solving the issue of Palestinian refugees, French newspaper Le Monde has reported.

According to Le Monde, this process has been underway since Israel and the UAE announced normalisation between the two countries in August.

According to the report, Emirati officials are weighing up a plan to gradually eliminate UNRWA, without making it conditional on a resolution of the refugee issue. This is despite the UAE having been a major funder of UNRWA in 2018 and 2019, along with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, to offset US President Donald Trump’s halting of funds to the agency, which had brought it to the verge of bankruptcy.

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