United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), agency of the United Nations, established by the General Assembly in December 1949 to provide relief and welfare services to refugees from Palestine and their descendants, living both in and out of refugee camps. The refugees, who lost their homes and their livelihoods as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1948, constitute a continuing problem between Israel and the Arab nations.

At present more than 2.6 million Palestinian refugees are registered with the agency. Only a small number of them receive direct aid, such as the distribution of food. UNRWA's main functions in the 1980s and 1990s have been to provide health care at the clinics and health centers run by the agency and educational services at UNRWA schools.

The agency is under the direction of a commissioner general and a 10-member-nation advisory commission. It maintains headquarters in Vienna and Amman, Jordan.