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UNRWA: Israel passes bills to evict UN Agency
Explore how recent Israeli Knesset bills threaten UNRWA and essential aid to Palestinian refugees in Gaza and the West Bank. Learn more now.
Israel's campaign to dismantle UNRWA, and with it the Palestinian refugee issue, is reaching a critical tipping point. Recently, the Israeli Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee greenlit two significant bills that aim to eliminate UNRWA’s presence and operations in Palestine.
These bills, now awaiting final approval in the Knesset, have been enabled by the unchecked impunity of Israel and the complicity of colonial states amid a year-long genocide in Gaza, suppression in the West Bank and aggression on Lebanon.
(H2) New Legislation in the Israeli Knesset
On 6 October 2024, the Israeli Knesset passed two bills against UNRWA; one bill seeks to prohibit UNRWA from operating or offering any services in “Israel,” while the other revokes Israel’s 1967 agreement with UNRWA, stripping UNRWA personnel of their immunities and privileges, and prohibiting ties and correspondence between Israeli officials and the Agency.
These bills are now pending a second and third reading at the Knesset before being codified into the law. If approved and legislated, they would eliminate UNRWA’s work in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, stripping Palestinian refugees of their legal rights and protections.
As UNRWA has been repeatedly recognized as the lifeline to Palestinians amid the ongoing genocide, the bills would sever crucial aid and services to the besieged, starved, and injured Palestinian population in Gaza - amplifying the conditions of life engineered by Israel to bring about their destruction.
International Reaction and Legal Implications to the Bills Against UNRWA
As UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres described, if the legislation passes, it “would be a catastrophe in what is already an unmitigated disaster”.
Guterres also pointed to the illegality of these bills, stating: “If approved, such legislation would be diametrically opposed to the UN Charter and in violation of Israel’s obligations under international law. National legislation cannot alter those obligations.”
Israeli campaigns aiming to demonize, dismantle UNRWA and transfer its responsibilities are not new. The Agency is not only responsible for providing aid, education, and social services to Palestinians, but it is also fundamentally linked to the enshrinement of the Palestinian refugees’ rights to reparations and return. Israel’s past and recent actions are, ultimately, part of a broader strategy aimed at liquidating the Palestinian refugee question.
The Ongoing Genocide and Attacks on UNRWA
Throughout the genocide, Israel has relentlessly targeted the Agency politically and materially. It has fabricated claims about UNRWA workers taking part in the 7 October resistance operations as part of a wider defunding and defamation campaign, attempted to shut down the Agency’s offices in Jerusalem, denied the Agency’s officials entry and continues to bombard its facilities, including schools sheltering IDPs and aid distribution centers, across the Gaza Strip.
Since the start of the genocide, 190 UNRWA installations have been damaged, at least 563 IDPs have been killed while sheltering in UNRWA facilities and 1,790 injured, and 225 UNRWA workers have been killed.
In Lebanon, since Israel escalated its aggression, the Agency reports that it has been forced to suspend its operations in the Tyre Area, announcing that “[o]nly minimal water and waste management services continue to be provided for the remaining inhabitants.” Furthermore, only 12 out of 27 UNRWA health centers in Lebanon are currently operational.
Global Complicity and the Call for Action
As Israel's campaign against UNRWA escalates to a critically dangerous level, the complicity of various states in Israel's actions also intensifies.
Every state that has echoed Israel's false allegations against UNRWA, defunded the Agency, or declined to sanction Israel, bears responsibility for the Agency's predicament, the attacks it faces, and the ensuing starvation of Palestinians.
To fulfill their responsibilities under international law, including the duty to stop, prevent, and refrain from being complicit in genocide and uphold their obligations to Palestinian refugees, states must immediately reinstate and increase funding to UNRWA (if they have not done so), ensure that it can fully implement its mandate in all its areas of operation, and impose sanctions and arms embargoes against the Israeli colonial-aparthied regime.