banning UNRWA, an unprecedented decision that jeopardizes aid to Palestinians in the midst of war

The body of one of the members of the UN agency UNRWA killed by an Israeli strike is brought to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on the 23 October 2024. EYAD BABA/AFP

It was dispatched in two short hours to Parliament, the Knesset, by two almost unanimous votes – and barely noticed in Israel. However, this is a major act, calling into question both a United Nations agency, now prevented from operating, as well as the fate of humanitarian aid in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories. Beyond that, the future of the inhabitants of these territories, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem, is at stake.

By a clear majority, Israeli deputies approved, on Monday October 28, two bills whose effect is to technically put an end to the activities of UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees. The possibility of this vote, preceded by two committee examinations in recent months, had alarmed the United Nations, like many countries – the United States, and the United Kingdom in particular. But Israeli elected officials ignored international warnings.

The first law passed Monday evening in the Knesset has the effect of banning the activities of UNRWA from “sovereign territory” Israeli, and therefore East Jerusalem, conquered during the Six-Day War in 1967, before being annexed by a vote of the Knesset in 1980. The eastern part of Jerusalem is still considered occupied by the United Nations as well than by most of the international community. This law, proposed by Boaz Bismuth, deputy of Likud (the party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), will have the effect of suspending the activities of UNRWA in East Jerusalem, particularly in the field of education, but also of facilitate the eviction process from premises occupied by the agency.

An “indispensable” agency

Boaz Bismuth affirmed, without further details, on Monday, that meetings had taken place in advance so that the municipality of Jerusalem would be able to replace UNRWA at short notice. Monday evening, he concluded: “The threats and pressure from the international community to block my bill have failed. » In a statement, he described UNRWA as“humanitarian agency for Hamas”. Without providing proof, the Israeli government says it has calculated that around 10% of the agency's employees (which has a total of 30,000, including 13,000 in Gaza) are affiliated with Hamas, or Islamic Jihad. According to a UN investigation published in August, “nine people [de l’agence] could have been involved” in the massacres of October 7, 2023 which led to the death of 1,200 people in Israel. But the United Nations agency says it is waiting, in vain, for evidence to support Israeli accusations involving hundreds of people. An audit of the agency's neutrality published in April by the former French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, found that UNRWA remained “irreplaceable and indispensable”.

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