By james art The laws ban UNRWA from working in Israel, designate it a terrorist organization and cut all ties between the agency and the Israeli government.
It is the culmination of a years-long campaign against the agency, which Israel claims has been infiltrated by Hamas. But supporters say Israel’s real goal is to sidestep the Palestinian refugee issue.
The agency is the main distributor of aid in Gaza and provides education, health and other basic services to millions of Palestinian refugees across the region, including in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The Israeli parliament’s vote against @UNRWA is unprecedented. Opposed to @UN Charter and violates the obligations of the State of Israel under international law.
Failure to oppose these bills will weaken our common multilateral mechanism.
This must be…
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) October 28, 2024
The agency’s head, Commissioner General Filipe Lazzarini, called the move “unprecedented” on X, formerly Twitter, after the vote and said the bills “will only deepen the suffering of Palestinians, especially in Gaza, where people have gone through more than a year of real hell
Israel accuses the agency of turning a blind eye to officials it says belong to Hamas, diverting aid and using UNRWA facilities for military purposes.
Israel claims about a dozen of its 13,000 staff in Gaza were involved in the attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. The agency denies knowingly aiding armed groups and says it is moving quickly to purge any suspected militants among its staff .
– How will the bills hinder UNRWA?
One of the bills, passed on Monday night, bans all UNRWA activities and services on Israeli soil and is due to take effect in three months.
The second bill designates UNRWA as a terrorist organization, cuts all ties between government officials and UNRWA, and strips staff of their legal immunity.
Together, the bills would likely bar the agency from operating in Israel and the Palestinian territories, as Israel controls access to both Gaza and the West Bank. This could force the agency to move its headquarters from Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.
Mr Lazzarini warned earlier this month that humanitarian operations in Gaza “could collapse” if the legislation is passed, cutting off food, shelter and healthcare as winter sets in.
Gaza’s population of about 2.3 million is almost entirely dependent on aid to survive. About 90% of the population is displaced.
Hundreds of thousands live in tent camps and schools converted into shelters, most run by UNRWA. Experts say hunger is widespread.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attack has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, whose count does not distinguish between civilians and militants.
Israel is reportedly considering taking on aid distribution itself or subcontracting it, but has not yet presented a concrete plan. Any such effort would likely require large numbers of troops and other resources at a time when Israel is at war on two fronts in Gaza and Lebanon.
Other UN agencies and humanitarian groups say there is no substitute for UNRWA, which also runs 96 schools serving some 47,000 students, three vocational training centers and 43 health centers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
– What is the history of UNRWA?
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East was established to help the approximately 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were driven from what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding the creation of Israel .
Supporters of UNRWA say Israel hopes to erase the Palestinian refugee problem by disbanding the agency. Israel argues that refugees should be permanently resettled in other countries, and Israeli opponents of the agency suggest that ending UNRWA’s services would force them to do so.
Palestinians say the refugees and their descendants, who now number nearly six million, should be able to exercise their right under international law to return home. Israel refused, saying the result would be a Palestinian majority within its borders.
The issue was among the most difficult in the peace process, which was halted in 2009.
UNRWA runs schools, health clinics, infrastructure projects and aid programs in refugee camps that have grown into urban neighborhoods in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
– Why is there a dispute about the neutrality of UNRWA?
Israel claims that hundreds of Palestinian fighters work for UNRWA, without providing evidence, and that more than a dozen personnel were involved in the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
UNRWA immediately fired the staff accused of involvement in the attack, in which Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people and kidnapped around 250.
An independent investigation earlier this year found that UNRWA had “robust” mechanisms to ensure its neutrality, but pointed to gaps in implementation, including staff publicly expressing political views and textbooks with “problematic content” in UNRWA-run schools.
UNRWA says it thoroughly investigates all allegations of wrongdoing and holds staff accountable, and that it provides lists of all its staff to Israel and host countries. It said Israel had largely ignored its requests to provide evidence of its allegations against the officials.
Israel has repeatedly struck UN schools that have been turned into shelters, claiming that Hamas militants operate there. It also says it has uncovered tunnels running near or under UNRWA facilities.
UNRWA has long been the largest single employer in Gaza, where the population has been impoverished by years of Israeli and Egyptian blockade.
Hamas has ruled the territory since 2007 and has civilian political operations alongside its armed wing.
The militant wings of Hamas and other groups are highly secretive, their members virtually unknown outside intelligence agencies. This complicates efforts by civic organizations to vet officials.
Fatah Sharif, a UNRWA teacher in southern Lebanon, was killed last month along with his family in an Israeli airstrike. It then emerged that he was a senior Hamas commander, something he had kept secret.
Mr. Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, said Mr. Sharif was suspended without pay in March after the agency learned he belonged to the Hamas political party and that an investigation had begun. He said he did not know Mr Sharif was a militant commander until his death.
– Does UNRWA have international support?
Several Western countries have suspended funding to UNRWA following allegations related to the October 7 attack. All but the United States, which was its biggest donor, have since reinstated it.
The Biden administration recently warned Israel that if it does not allow more aid into Gaza, it could lose some of the crucial American military aid it has relied on throughout the war.
The letter sent by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to their Israeli counterparts said they shared Israel’s concerns about “serious allegations” of the involvement of UNRWA staff in the October 7 attack and of “misuse by Hamas with UNRWA facilities’.
But it said the passage of the bills’ restrictions “would cripple the humanitarian response in Gaza at this critical time … which could have consequences under relevant US law and policy.”
A joint statement from Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom last week expressed “grave concern” about the legislation.
It said the agency provides “essential and life-saving humanitarian assistance” that would be “severely difficult, if not impossible” to provide without it.