ISRAEL HAS FORMALLY notified the United Nations of its decision to sever ties with UNRWA, the agency supporting Palestinian refugees.
Israel’s parliament last month approved a proposal to shut down UNRWA’s operations in the occupied Palestinian Territory, despite condemnation from the international community, including its ally the United States and Ireland.
The ban should come into force in late January, with the UN Security Council warning it would have severe consequences for millions of Palestinians.
“On the instruction of Foreign Minister Israel Katz, the ministry of foreign affairs notified the UN of the cancellation of the agreement between the State of Israel and UNRWA,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“UNRWA, the organisation whose employees participated in the October 7 massacre and many of whose employees are Hamas operatives, is part of the problem in the Gaza Strip and not part of the solution,” Katz was quoted as saying.
Officially called the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA provides a wide range of services and employs around 30,000 people – mostly Palestinians.
Jonathan Fowler, an UNRWA spokesman, told AFP the ban would probably cause the collapse of aid efforts to Gaza.
“If this law is implemented, it would be likely to cause the collapse of the international humanitarian operation in the Gaza Strip — an operation of which UNRWA is the backbone,” Fowler told AFP.
“It would also be likely to cause the collapse of essential services provided by UNRWA in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including education, healthcare, and sanitation.”
In a statement this morning, Taoiseach Simon Harris said:
This will go down in history as an outrage: cutting off the only way the world has to get aid, education and healthcare into a zone of humanitarian catastrophe, a new way to kill innocent people and see hundreds of thousands suffer.
But Katz has claimed that the vast majority of humanitarian aid to Gaza is being delivered through other organisations, and only 13% is delivered through UNRWA.
“The State of Israel is committed to international law and will continue to facilitate the entrance of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip in a manner that does not harm the security of the citizens of Israel,” he said.
Residents of Nur Shams camp in the occupied West Bank were fearful for the future after an Israeli raid last week damaged the UNRWA office there.
The 13,000 inhabitants of the camp near the northern city of Tulkarem depend heavily on UNRWA.
“For us, it’s UNRWA or nothing,” Shafiq Ahmad Jad, who runs a phone shop in the camp, told AFP.
“For the refugees… they look to UNRWA as their mother,” said Hanadi Jabr Abu Taqa, an agency official in charge of the northern West Bank.
“So imagine if they lost their mother.”
In January 2024, Israel accused 12 UNRWA staff members of taking part in the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023, leading many Western countries to temporarily suspend funding for the organisation.
The United States was chief among those states that suspended funding and it remains paused. In September 2024, a bill aimed at restoring the funds was introduced in the US Congress but it has not moved beyond the introduction phase.
Ireland was among the countries that did not withdraw funding.
In response to the 7 October accusations, UNRWA suspended 19 named workers (the number rose from 12 to 19 between January and April).
A series of UN probes found some “neutrality related issues” at the agency, and determined that nine employees “may have been involved” in the 7 October attack, but found no evidence for Israel’s wider allegations.
The ban has also raised fears UNRWA employees in the occupied West Bank could potentially face problems moving from one place to another as well as accessing east Jerusalem or Israel because they would lose their ability to coordinate with the Israeli authorities to cross checkpoints.
The same fears apply to visas and permits delivered by Israeli authorities.
UNRWA and other humanitarian agencies have accused Israeli authorities of restricting aid flows into Gaza, where almost all the territory’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once during the war.
Israel also alleged that 10% of UNRWA’s 13,000 workers in Gaza had connections to Hamas, a claim that remains unsubstantiated. The UN says Israel has not provided any evidence for its claims.
In a year of war in the Gaza Strip, UNRWA says 237 of its workers have been killed in the territory.
With reporting from © AFP 2024
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