Banning UNRWA is a New Way to Kill Children, Aid Groups Warn

Maureen Clare Murphy 

30 October 2024

The head of Amnesty International said that Israel’s ban on UNRWA amounts to ”criminalization of humanitarian aid.” Omar AshtawyAPA images

Palestinian human rights groups say that new Israeli legislation banning a UN agency from providing services to Palestinians under occupation “aligns with a broader pattern of Israel’s genocidal intent.”

On Monday, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed into law – with near unanimity – two bills that would effectively ban UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, from operating in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

One of the laws bars state authorities from having any contact with UNRWA, which provides health, education and other basic services to millions of Palestinian refugees in the occupied Palestinian territories as well as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

“The legislation also terminates the 1967 agreement between Israel and UNRWA with immediate effect,” according to three prominent Palestinian human rights groups: Al-Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

The second law bans the agency from operating in so-called Israeli territory and “will go into effect three months after the passing of the laws – approximately by the end of January 2025,” the rights groups said.

If enacted, the new laws will shutter UNRWA’s headquarters in eastern Jerusalem, which Israel has unlawfully occupied since 1967 and annexed in violation of international law. UNRWA’s Jerusalem headquarters are the administrative hub for its operations across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

According to media reports, Israel plans to build settlements on the site of UNRWA’s headquarters, which state authorities ordered vacated in May.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has the authority to block the legislation. But he is unlikely to do so, despite international pressure, especially after his foreign minister declared António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, persona non grata.

Israel’s unbridled hostility toward the United Nations will only escalate with every attempt towards accountability through the world body’s organs.

On Wednesday, the UN Security Council issued a statement declaring its support for UNRWA and warning “against any attempts to dismantle or diminish UNRWA’s operations and mandate.”

“Criminalization of humanitarian aid”

Three prominent Palestinian human rights groups – Al-Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights – said that the passage of the laws is part of a “calculated, decades-long campaign to dismantle UNRWA and undermine the inalienable right of return” of Palestinian refugees.

“Now more than ever, amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, UNRWA’s role is not only essential but irreplaceable,” the groups added.

The new legislation “amounts to the criminalization of humanitarian aid and will worsen an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis,” Agnès Callamard, the head of Amnesty International, said on Tuesday.

Joyce Msuya, the acting UN relief chief, said “this decision is dangerous and outrageous.”

“If UNRWA is unable to operate, it’ll likely see the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza,” warned James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children’s agency UNICEF. “So a decision such as this suddenly means that a new way has been found to kill children.”

UN officials say the decision to ban UNRWA amounts to collective punishment – a war crime – for the alleged involvement of a handful of agency staff in the 7 October 2023 attack on Israeli military bases and colonies along Gaza’s periphery.

“The implementation of the laws could have devastating consequences for Palestine refugees” in the West Bank, including eastern Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, according to the UN secretary-general.

National legislation cannot alter Israel’s obligations under the UN charter and international law, Guterres added.

UNRWA is the agency with the largest humanitarian footprint in the West Bank and Gaza and one of the largest employers in the occupied Palestinian territories.

“Dismantling UNRWA will have a catastrophic impact on the international response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, told the president of the General Assembly in a letter on Tuesday. “It will also sabotage any chance of recovery.”

In the absence of any other entity to provide government-like services, the effective ban on UNRWA will leave more than 660,000 children in Gaza without an education. “An entire generation of children will be sacrificed,” Lazzarini said.

The Palestinian rights groups observe that 2.4 million Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza “will be deprived of essential services – particularly education and healthcare – that only UNRWA has the mandate and capacity to deliver.”

UNRWA staff killed and tortured

Addressing Israel’s allegations, Lazzarini said that UNRWA provided Israel with a list of its staff on an annual basis for 15 years. Personnel that Israel never raised concerns over are now included in its lists of alleged fighters, he said.

Repeated requests to the Israeli government appealing for evidence regarding its allegations against UNRWA staff have gone without a reply, he added.

“UNRWA is therefore in the invidious position of being unable to address allegations for which it has no evidence, while these allegations continue to be used to undermine the agency,” Lazzarini said.

He added that at least 237 UNRWA staff have been killed in Gaza and more than 200 of its facilities have been damaged or destroyed in attacks that have killed more than 560 people “seeking UN protection.” Meanwhile, “dozens of UNRWA staff have been detained and report being tortured,” Lazzarini said.

Israel has abused UNRWA employees detained in Gaza in order to extract forced confessions incriminating the agency.

Israel’s attacks on UNRWA “are an integral part” of the crumbling of “the rules-based international order … in a repetition of the horrors that led to the establishment of the United Nations,” Lazzarini added.

Passage of the bills, strongly opposed and viewed as extreme even by Tel Aviv’s allies, will increase international pressure on Israel.

In March, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to “ensure, without delay, in full cooperation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision at scale … of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.”

The Palestinian research group Badil has said that instead of adhering to the orders of the UN court, western colonial states were abetting “Israel’s aim to oust UNRWA” from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“The demise of UNRWA is a strategic goal that serves Israel’s colonial-apartheid aspirations to eliminate the Palestinian refugee issue,” Badil added.

The group has called on governments around the world to “freeze Israel’s membership in the United Nations in view of its failure to fulfill its membership obligations.”

Right of return

This includes Israel’s failure to implement UN General Assembly resolution 194 of 1948.

Around 800,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland during the Zionist conquest of hundreds of towns and villages ahead of the declaration of the state of Israel.

Resolution 194 calls for those refugees to be allowed to return to their homes “at the earliest practicable date” and for compensation for loss of property.

Israel’s admittance to the UN was conditioned on recognition of the right of return of Palestine refugees.

According to international law expert Shahd Hammouri, denial of that right “is perplexingly at the heart of the Israeli state’s ideology despite being a condition of its membership.”

Adalah, a group that advocates for the rights of Palestinians in Israel, said that the laws banning UNRWA “violate the provisional measures ordered by the [International Court of Justice] and may also breach the Genocide Convention and the [International Criminal Court’s] Rome Statute.”

The US secretaries of state and defense warned Israel earlier this month that there would be potential consequences including the suspension of military assistance if Israel didn’t allow a surge of aid into Gaza.

International monitors warn of a persistent risk of famine across all of Gaza. With winter approaching, and after more than a year of Israel using food and water as weapons of war, “the lives of two million Palestinians are already in grave danger,” the three Palestinian human rights groups said.

Disruption of UNRWA’s operations “would have devastating consequences and inevitably contribute to imposing conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza,” the groups added.

The US and some European countries have reportedly warned Israel that the ban on UNRWA could undermine the state’s defense at the International Court of Justice, where it stands accused of genocide.

The International Criminal Court also appears to be particularly focused on Israel’s restrictions on humanitarian aid in its investigation into suspected war crimes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Norway has already initiated a UN resolution requesting an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legality of Israel’s “systematic obstacles” that prevent the provision of humanitarian assistance to Palestinians under occupation.

In a statement published on Tuesday, Norway stated that the ban on UNRWA “will have severe consequences for millions of civilians already living in the most dire of circumstances.”

“It also undermines the stability of the entire Middle East,” the Norwegian statement added.

An unnamed diplomat whose comments were paraphrased by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz said that international courts may rule against the state and its leaders if there are further decreases in aid, “making it more difficult for Israel’s allies to defend the country.”

At the time that Israel’s Knesset voted to ban UNRWA, some 100,000 Palestinians were under siege in the northern Gaza areas of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya refugee camp without food, water or medical supplies.

“The entire population of north Gaza is at risk of dying,” Joyce Msuya, the acting UN relief chief, stated two days before the vote.