The German foreign and development ministries said in a joint statement on Monday that recommendations in the report "must now be implemented quickly".

Among the recommendations are tighter oversight of UNRWA management and greater international involvement in supporting the agency as it addresses concerns about its neutrality.

"In this context and accompanying these reforms, the German government will soon continue its cooperation with UNRWA in the Gaza Strip, as for example Australia, Canada, Sweden and Japan have already done," the statement said.

Germany, a staunch ally of Israel, also said it would discuss further funding with its "closest international partners".

The head of the Arab League welcomed the report, saying it showed that Israeli accusations were unfounded and part of a "systematic campaign" to end the agency's mandate in the Gaza Strip.

Israel has alleged that hundreds of UNRWA employees are members of Palestinian militant groups and said the report understated the problem.

Its allegations have led the United States and more than a dozen other countries to suspend funding for UNRWA, at a time of severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza, devastated by more than six months of war between Israel and the Islamist Palestinian movement Hamas.

On 7 October last year, fighters from the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) - in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007 and classified as a terrorist organisation by the United States, the European Union and Israel - carried out an attack on Israeli territory of unprecedented proportions since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, killing 1,163 people, mostly civilians, and taking 250 hostages, of whom about 130 remain in captivity and 34 are believed to have died, according to the latest figures from the Israeli authorities.

In retaliation, Israel declared a war to "eradicate" Hamas, which is now in its 201st day, and continues to threaten to spread to the entire Middle East region. So far, it has killed more than 34,000 people in the Gaza Strip, injured more than 76,200 and left thousands missing, presumed buried in the rubble, most of them civilians, according to updated figures from the local authorities.

The conflict has also displaced almost two million people, plunging the overcrowded and impoverished Palestinian enclave into a serious humanitarian crisis, with more than 1.1 million people in a "catastrophic hunger situation" that is claiming victims - "the highest number ever recorded" by the UN in food security studies worldwide.

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