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Sweden Resumes Payments to UNRWA

Displaced Palestinians at Rafah refugee camp, near the border with Egypt, southern Gaza Strip, 29 February 2024. (EPA)
Displaced Palestinians at Rafah refugee camp, near the border with Egypt, southern Gaza Strip, 29 February 2024. (EPA)
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Sweden Resumes Payments to UNRWA

Displaced Palestinians at Rafah refugee camp, near the border with Egypt, southern Gaza Strip, 29 February 2024. (EPA)
Displaced Palestinians at Rafah refugee camp, near the border with Egypt, southern Gaza Strip, 29 February 2024. (EPA)

Sweden said on Saturday it would resume suspended payments to the UN refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), with a grant of 200 million crowns ($20 million).

Several countries, including the United States and Britain, paused their funding to UNRWA after accusations by Israel that a dozen of the agency's 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

The Swedish government said it had resumed payments after UNRWA agreed to strengthen internal controls and to extra checks on its employees, among other measures.

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White House Urges Hamas to Sign on to New Deal to Ensure Hostage Release

Palestinian boys examine a car targeted in an Israeli army strike that killed several of its occupants in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Friday, Jan. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinian boys examine a car targeted in an Israeli army strike that killed several of its occupants in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Friday, Jan. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
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White House Urges Hamas to Sign on to New Deal to Ensure Hostage Release

Palestinian boys examine a car targeted in an Israeli army strike that killed several of its occupants in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Friday, Jan. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinian boys examine a car targeted in an Israeli army strike that killed several of its occupants in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Friday, Jan. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

The Biden administration is urging Hamas to sign on to a new ceasefire deal that would ensure the release of hostages, White House National Security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Friday.

Kirby said the White House welcomed Israel's decision to send another team to Doha to continue negotiations.

The United States, Egypt and Qatar have been trying to mediate a deal for a ceasefire and hostage release for a year with no success and are making another push this month before Donald Trump's inauguration.
Ceasefire efforts have continually stumbled on a fundamental disagreement over how to end the conflict. Hamas says it will accept an agreement and release the hostages only if Israel commits to ending the war. Israel says it will agree to stop fighting only once Hamas is destroyed.

On Friday, Hamas said it wanted "a complete ceasefire, the withdrawal of occupation forces from the Gaza Strip" and the return of displaced people to their homes in all areas of the enclave.

US President Joe Biden has repeatedly called for a ceasefire agreement. Trump has said that if there is not a deal to release the hostages before his inauguration, "all hell is going to break out.”