Israel’s Moves to Ban UNRWA—Signals Uncertainty for Affected Palestinians

Danny Danon, Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations, addresses the Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East. Credit: UN Photo/ Evan Schneider.

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 5 2024 (IPS)

The decision of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, to adopt two laws that would severely limit or outright ban UNRWA has the potential to set a dangerous precedent, where countries can simply implement their own justification to ban the activity of the United Nations, even if it violates their obligations under international humanitarian law. Even with the rest of the world condemning this course of action, for Israel, this has been a long time coming and they are unlikely to back down.

Before the laws were adopted on October 28, fifty-two global humanitarian organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, Oxfam and ActionAid, released a joint statement calling on world leaders to protect UNRWA and to “use all diplomatic means” to prevent the legislation from going through. The organizations also condemned Israel’s course of action during the current war waged in Gaza since October 2023.

“These actions are part of the wider strategy of the government of Israel to delegitimise UNRWA, discredit its support for Palestine refugees, and undermine the international legal framework protecting their rights, including the right of return,” the statement reads.

What seems certain is that more than 2 million people in Gaza will face greater hardships than they do now if UNRWA is no longer able to provide aid and public services. While the Knesset’s new legislation only applies to UNRWA in Israel and the occupied territories, this raises the possibility of a wider impact on the Palestinian community.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Phillipe Lazzarini said in a statement issued on X (formerly Twitter) that these bills would only increase the suffering of Palestinians and that they are “nothing less than collective punishment.”

Michael Omer-Man, Director of Research for Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), says that it is “difficult to fathom the scope of the downstream consequences of Palestinian refugees everywhere.”

Speaking to IPS, Omer-Man warned that the new Knesset laws would likely be the first of many in the future that will come to shape the legislative framework of Israel-Palestine relations. Israel’s campaign against UNRWA has been in the making for decades now, as it has claimed repeatedly that UNRWA is a terrorist organization and too deeply under the influence of Hamas.  The current war in Gaza has been justified to the Israeli public as a method to starve out the Palestinian refugees in the region. Israel accused that at least a dozen UNRWA staff members were involved in the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023.

As an entity of the United Nations with a mandate from the General Assembly established in 1949, UNRWA has largely been funded by other member states, though it has been seeing a funding shortfall over the last decade. This is in spite of the agreement between Israel and UNRWA established in 1967, where Israel had committed to facilitating UNRWA’s work. Without the organization’s presence to meet the needs of the population in Gaza, it should fall on Israel, as the occupying power, to take that responsibility.

As was pointed out by Chris Sidoti, a commissioner of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, there is some irony in this ban on UNRWA, for the organization has saved Israel billions of dollars in taxpayer money that would have gone towards providing aid and essential services to the Palestinian community.

In reality, it is unlikely that Israel would assume that responsibility now. However, supposing that Israel were to cooperate and take a more direct hand in providing aid and services to Gaza and the West Bank, it would not be a popular move among its civilians. Omer-Man said that among some members of the government, there is a fear of severe backlash from its citizens, given that they have been fed this justification for the war, given the claims that Gaza would be forced to starve and thirst away. A reversal of that stance could be seen as betrayal. Any economic pressure put on Israel to abide by international law may not reverse the tide of war or sway public opinion.

This was only reinforced when Israel sent a letter addressed to the President of the General Assembly over the weekend, announcing its intention to withdraw from its 1967 agreement with UNRWA effectively immediately. UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters on Monday that as of now UNRWA is continuing to operate.

In the wake of the new legislation coming to pass, several countries have condemned this action, with a coalition of 52 countries and two organizations, which included Türkiye, China, Russia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia, issuing an appeal to the Security Council to enact an arms embargo on Israel.

The UN Ambassador in New York, Danny Danon, has said that Israel would “continue to facilitate humanitarian aid in Gaza according to international law.” He added that other UN organizations, such as the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) would be able to take over in providing aid in the way that UNRWA has. Israel’s letter to the General Assembly also reiterates this claim, noting in it that they would continue to “ensure the facilitation of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not undermine Israel’s security”.

This has been refuted by the UN and its agencies, who have stated on multiple occasions that there is no alternative to UNRWA. They and other humanitarian organizations have argued that few other groups have the knowledge to navigate the Palestinian territories like UNRWA. They warn that a ban on UNRWA would create further obstacles to addressing what is already a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Despite assurances from Israeli officials, this raises the question of whether this should mean that other UN agencies and humanitarian groups will not be targeted or discredited, much in the same way that UNRWA has been since the start of the war last October.

Since the start of the war, nearly 200 UNRWA facilities have been damaged or destroyed entirely by repeated, targeted attacks and crossfire by the IDF. 237 UNRWA staff members have been killed. Separate from that, there have also been cases of aid convoys or vehicles bearing the sigil of groups such as WFP that have been shot at by Israel’s armed forces, forcing the targeted groups to temporarily suspend their activities out of safety concerns.

“What I would take from this… is that they’re looking for a piecemeal solution to keep people alive to ensure that they seem like they are doing just enough to abide by international humanitarian law,” said Omer-Man.

The laws that would ban UNRWA are set to come into effect in January 2025. The Israeli Foreign Ministry has stated that “UNRWA is part of the problem in Gaza—not part of the solution,” and that “claims that there is no alternative to UNRWA are unfounded.”

“Despite the substantial evidence we provided to the UN demonstrating Hamas’s influence over UNRWA, no measures were taken to acknowledge or alter the situation. As I have repeatedly emphasized, UNRWA is under Hamas’s control in Gaza. Israel will continue its cooperation with humanitarian organizations but not with those that serve terrorism against Israel,” Danon remarked.

Suffice to say, Israel’s actions go against its obligations under international law. To say nothing of Israel’s actions in the current war, as the IDF’s campaign in northern Gaza has devastated the area and left the humanitarian response on the ground scrambling. It also challenges the Palestinian question that has been in debate for decades and the two-state solution that the international community wants to work towards.

Israel’s actions in recent weeks only show, as Omer-Man warned, that rather than answer the question, they want instead to erase the question, to dismantle it.

IPS UN Bureau Report