# UNRWA's continued work on the ground

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/occupied-thoughts-1004589/unrwa-s-continued-work-on-the-ground
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/occupied-thoughts-1004589/unrwa-s-continued-work-on-the-ground.md
Podcast: [Occupied Thoughts](https://stenobird.com/podcast/occupied-thoughts-1004589)
Published: 2026-03-30T22:07:38+00:00
Episode link: https://soundcloud.com/fmep_pod/unrwas-continued-work-on-the
Audio file: https://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/2293614521-fmep_pod-unrwas-continued-work-on-the.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/occupied-thoughts-1004589/episodes/unrwa-s-continued-work-on-the-ground
Duration seconds: 2123

## Resource

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart speaks with Mara Kronenfeld, Executive Director of UNRWA USA. They discuss the role of UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) in the lives of Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon and especially in the West Bank and Gaza. UNRWA has 12,000 staff on the ground in Gaza now and continues to offer essential humanitarian support as well as schooling, despite attacks from Israel, which has destroyed more than 90% of UNRWA schools, refused to allow UNRWA-designated aid into Gaza and refuses to permit international UNRWA staff from entering Gaza and the West Bank, and the challenge of lost funding from many funder states including the United States. Peter and Mara discuss the content and success of UNRWA schooling, including addressing the accusations of antisemitism in UNRWA curricula, as well as the unsubstantiated allegations that some UNRWA staff participated in the October 7th, 2023 attacks inside of Israel. Finally, they discuss the enormous growth in funding support for UNRWA via UNRWA USA, which has sent $83 million dollars of raised funds to Gaza over the past 2.5 years. For more on UNRWA and UNRWA USA, see Israel has crushed Unrwa in Gaza – and the rest of the world has done nothing by Phillipe Lazzarini in The Guardian 3/21/26 and UNRWA is Still In Gaza by Mara Kronenfeld in December 2025 in the Washington Post (an UNRWA USA ad and op-ed). Mara Kronenfeld is the Executive Director of UNRWA USA, where she leads the strategic vision, operations, and fundraising efforts of the nonprofit organization that supports the humanitarian and human development work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the Midd…

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/occupied-thoughts-1004589/episodes/unrwa-s-continued-work-on-the-ground/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/occupied-thoughts-1004589/unrwa-s-continued-work-on-the-ground.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.