World leaders have issued harsh warnings of a humanitarian crisis after Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed two laws banning UNRWA — the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East — on Monday.
The laws were passed due to criticisms by Israel about UNRWA’s role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
What is UNRWA?
In Nov. 1948, while Israel was still fighting the War of Independence against a coalition of Arab states, the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 212, establishing an agency known as the U.N. Relief for Palestine Refugees. The agency was tasked with organizing and coordinating relief efforts by various international bodies for Jewish and Arab refugees of the conflict.
A month later, Resolution 194 was passed, establishing a conciliation commission to help reach an end to the conflict. Article 11 of the resolution stresses that “the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.”
The U.N. failed to resolve the refugee crisis in the following years, both because Arab refugees were largely prevented from returning to Israel and because the Arab states in the region were unwilling to accept any of the refugees as citizens.
A U.N. survey mission finally resolved that it would not be able to repatriate the refugees. It advised that “the only immediate constructive step in sight” would be to create a U.N. agency to help refugees work where they were living at that time without pursuing a lasting solution to the refugee crisis.
In light of the mission’s recommendation, the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 302 in Dec. 1949, establishing UNRWA as it more or less exists today.
While originally Jewish refugees were also covered by UNRWA, in June 1952, the State of Israel and UNRWA reached an agreement in which the state took responsibility for the 19,000 refugees living in Israel.
Over the years, UNRWA’s mandate has shifted slightly. Today, it provides aid services to Palestinian refugees in five areas: Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), and Gaza.
UNRWA provides services such as basic education, primary health care, relief and social services, infrastructure and refugee camp improvement, and assistance in emergency situations.
Why does Israel want to ban UNRWA?
While UNRWA’s stated mandate is to provide aid to refugees, there are a few reasons Israel wants to ban the agency.
UNRWA involvement in the Oct. 7 massacre
First and foremost is mounting evidence of the role UNRWA employees played in the Oct. 7 massacre.
At least 19 UNRWA employees have been accused of taking part in the attacks. UNRWA announced at the beginning of October that nine of the accused employees had been fired. In another case, no evidence was provided to substantiate the claim; in nine other cases, the evidence was deemed insufficient.
The head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, has insisted that “UNRWA is committed to continue upholding the fundamental principles and values of the United Nations, including the humanitarian principle of neutrality, and to ensure that all its staff abide by the Agency’s policy on outside and political activities.”
Despite statements by UNRWA, additional employees still working for the agency have been linked to Oct. 7.
Last week, the IDF announced that it had eliminated Muhammad Abu Attawi — a Hamas Nukhba force commander who led the massacre at a bomb shelter near Kibbutz Re’im on Oct. 7 — in an airstrike in Gaza. Abu Attawi was driving a U.N. vehicle when he was targeted in the strike.
UNRWA said that it had been informed about Abu Attawi’s involvement in Oct. 7 but added that no action had been taken against him because Israel did not respond to a request for further information.
On Oct. 7, Abu Attawi commanded Hamas terrorists who targeted a roadside bomb shelter near the Nova Music Festival where 30 people were hiding. Sixteen were murdered, and four were kidnapped in the massacre, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Only seven of those in the shelter survived.
In September, another UNRWA employee, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, was found to be the head of Hamas’ Lebanon branch. Abu el-Amin served as the chairman of UNRWA’s Teachers Association and the principal of a UNRWA-run school in Lebanon until he was put on administrative leave in March. The head of UNRWA insisted, however, that the agency was unaware that Abu el-Amin was a senior Hamas commander.
In February, the head of UNRWA acknowledged that there were Hamas members in the agency, telling the New York Times that “Our employees are part of the social fabric of Gaza and its ecosystem. And as part of the social fabric in Gaza, you have also Hamas.”
In March, former UNRWA official Ahmad Oueidat said in a TV interview that former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was also an UNRWA teacher, as was Dr. Talal Naji, Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), a splinter group from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Hamas’s use of UNRWA facilities
Another reason Israel wants UNRWA out is evidence of ties between the agency and Hamas, including the terrorist movement’s use of U.N. facilities for terrorist purposes.
In February, the IDF uncovered a massive underground Hamas facility directly beneath UNRWA’s Gaza headquarters. The facility was filled with computer equipment, and there were wires connecting the facility to a room at the UNRWA headquarters.
The IDF argued that there was no way UNRWA personnel were unaware of the construction of such a large facility directly underneath their feet.
Over the years, tunnels and rockets have been found repeatedly in UNRWA schools and facilities. Some of these cases have been publicly acknowledged by UNRWA.
Throughout the war against Hamas, terrorists have also been targeted by Israeli airstrikes while hiding in UNRWA-run schools.
UNRWA’s hate-filled curriculum
Even before the war in Gaza, UNRWA was controversial for the curriculum it taught Palestinian children across the region.
UNRWA uses the curriculum of the Palestinian Authority in its schools in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
Several reports from watchdog groups found antisemitic content and material glorifying terrorism against civilians in UNRWA schools.
A 2021 study by the Georg Eckert Institute notes that textbooks used by UNRWA contain “cumulative stereotypes and accusations that can clearly be characterized as antisemitic” as well as “glorifications of violence.”
IMPACT-se, an Israeli organization that monitors educational content in Israel and across the region, has consistently found that the textbooks used by UNRWA are “openly antisemitic and continue to encourage violence, jihad, and martyrdom while peace is not taught as preferable or even possible.”
For example, students in UNRWA schools from Lebanon to Gaza are taught content glorifying Dalal al-Mughrabi, a terrorist who led the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre in which 38 civilians were murdered, including 13 children. UNRWA has insisted that material about al-Mughrabi has been removed from their schools, but photos from classrooms and scans of teaching materials show that this isn’t true.
In another case, a 9th-grade Arabic Language reading comprehension exercise celebrated a firebombing attack carried out by Palestinians on a Jewish bus in the West Bank as a “barbecue party.”
Seventh-grade students in another UNRWA class were taught a Mahmoud Darwish poem reading, “The enemy is despicable, Palestine is ours. The departure of the occupier from our land is inevitable. We shall oppose the enemy’s tanks with blood and flesh.”
Fifth graders in another class were taught that martyrdom and jihad are “the most important meanings of life” through an Arabic vocabulary and grammar exercise.
Third and fourth graders at UNRWA schools were taught math by counting the number of terrorists and suicide bombers in the First and Second Intifadas.
Maps of Palestine in UNRWA textbooks erase Israel, describing Palestine as “from the Mediterranean Sea in the west; to the Jordan River in the East; and from Lebanon and Syria in the north; to the Gulf of Aqaba and Egypt in the south.”
UNRWA teachers were even instructed to punish students who failed to “tie the perpetration of Zionist massacres to Jewish religious thought.”
UNRWA may be perpetuating the Palestinian refugee crisis
Many critics of UNRWA argue that the agency perpetuates the Palestinian refugee crisis and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a whole.
The Palestinians are the only group to have a dedicated refugee agency. All other refugees are handled by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which was founded a year after UNRWA was established.
The major difference between the two agencies is that the UNHCR is mandated to help refugees exit their refugee status by providing them with permanent solutions such as resettling in a new place, while UNRWA is mandated to only provide services such as education and healthcare to Palestinian refugees and cannot help them find permanent solutions to exit their refugee status.
This distinction means that while all other refugees receive not only temporary aid but also help to move forward and stop being refugees, Palestinian refugees have no way to stop being refugees until the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is completely resolved. Because of this, Palestinian refugees automatically pass on their refugee status to their descendants, in contrast to other refugees who only pass on that status if the UNHCR fails to find them a permanent solution.
This means that while in 1949 there were around 500-700,000 Palestinian refugees, today there are nearly six million people counted as Palestinian refugees living across the Middle East under UNRWA’s definition.
Some claim that if UNRWA is dismantled, Palestinians will no longer be stuck in their refugee status and that, together with education for tolerance and peace, this could lead to an actual end to the conflict.
What does the new law mean?
The new laws passed by the Knesset ban UNRWA from operating in Israeli territory (including East Jerusalem) and prohibit Israeli officials from maintaining contact with the agency.
It’s still not fully clear how exactly the laws will be implemented, but there are some central impacts the law will likely have on the agency.
The first law primarily affects UNRWA’s operations in East Jerusalem since that’s the only area of the agency’s operations within sovereign Israeli territory.
The second law, which prohibits contact between UNRWA and Israeli officials, is expected to more severely impact the agency’s operations in Gaza and the West Bank.
This law includes a clause revoking an agreement reached between Israel and the U.N. in 1967 after Israel took over Gaza and the West Bank in the Six-Day War. The agreement states that Israel will:
- To ensure the protection and security of the personnel, installations, and property of UNRWA;
- To permit the free movement of UNRWA vehicles into, within, and out of Israel and the areas in question;
- To permit the international staff of the Agency to move in, out, and within Israel and the areas in question; they will be provided with identity documents and any other passes which might be required;
- To permit the local staff of the Agency to move within the areas in question under arrangements made or to be made with the military authorities;
- To provide radio, telecommunications and landing facilities;
- Pending a further supplementary agreement, to maintain the previously existing financial arrangements with the governmental authorities then responsible for the areas in question, concerning:
- Exemptions from customs duties, taxes and charges on importation of supplies, goods and equipment:
- Provision free of charge of warehousing, labor for offloading and handling, and transport by rail or road in the areas under our control;
For one, the law will affect the ability of UNRWA employees to get visas since they can’t communicate with Israeli officials. This is less of an issue in Gaza since most of the UNRWA employees there are residents of the Strip.
If the law is interpreted to mean that all aspects of the agreement with UNRWA are being revoked, then UNRWA staff would be blocked from moving in and out of Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. They would also not have the same level of freedom of movement they previously had in these areas and would lose their diplomatic immunity.
The ban on contact between UNRWA and Israeli officials may also affect humanitarian aid efforts in Gaza, since many international organizations coordinate their efforts through UNRWA. At the moment, the agency coordinates the entry of most aid into Gaza with Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the body responsible for the checkpoints into Gaza.
World leaders warn of diplomatic and humanitarian consequences of the laws
The new laws against UNRWA have sparked international outrage, with several allies of Israel warning they could have consequences on diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin warned Israeli officials in a recent letter that Israel needed to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza within a month or risk losing the steady supply of military aid it receives from the United States.
In the letter, Blinken and Austin referenced the laws against UNRWA, stressing that the “enactment of such restrictions would devastate the Gaza humanitarian response at this critical moment and deny vital educational and social services to tens of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which could have implications under relevant US law and policy.”
European Council President Charles Michel warned that the laws could lead to an annulment of a trade agreement between Israel and the European Union. The E.U. accounts for 28.8% of Israel’s trade in goods.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stressed that “The implementation of these laws would be detrimental for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for peace and security in the region as a whole. As I said before, UNRWA is indispensable.”
Guterres added that the laws were contrary to Israel’s obligations under the U.N. Charter and other obligations under international law. Israeli officials have argued that this isn’t the case as other agencies can cover what UNRWA does and that UNRWA’s permission to operate in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank comes from the agreement between the agency and Israel, which can be terminated.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced after the laws were passed that Israel was ready to work with “our international partners to ensure Israel continues to facilitate humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not threaten Israel’s security.”
Dan Ilouz, one of the sponsors of the bill, stated after the laws were passed that, “This is not just another routine law; it is a crucial measure in the global fight against terror.”
“UNRWA is not an innocent humanitarian organization, as it pretends to be. This is an organization that cooperates with Hamas. Its facilities are used for the storage of weapons, and it even permits rocket fire from its schools. UNRWA perpetuates the refugee status of the Palestinians, with the clear purpose of creating constant friction, inciting to violence and training a new generation of extremists. The call for the closure of UNRWA is a call for justice and for the preservation of our security and shared democratic values.”
In a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon, stressed that, due to UNRWA’s involvement in the Oct. 7th attacks, the international community “must accept the reality that UNRWA-Gaza is beyond redemption, beyond saving, beyond reform.”
Chris Sidoti, an Australian human rights lawyer who sits on the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, argued that UNRWA was actually helping Israel, since it foots the bill for much of the services Israel would otherwise be required to provide itself.
“UNRWA has saved Israeli taxpayers billions of dollars over the last 57 years,” said Sidoti. “Israel, as the occupying power under the fourth Geneva Convention, is responsible for the care, protection, and the provision of services to persons under occupation. The international community has been doing that by its financial support for UNRWA. So if UNRWA is kicked out, the cost for the Israeli taxpayer is going to be ginormous. So this is a decision that is bad for the Palestinians and ridiculous for Israeli taxpayers.”
A senior official in the Palestinian Authority similarly warned in a statement to Ynet that “Israel is tying our hands and feet. We have no way to address all the issues UNRWA handled and supported without UN funding and aid unless Israel intends to fill that void through financing.”
Likud MK Boaz Bismuth insisted that there would not be a vacuum and that Israel was willing to take responsibility for the services UNRWA provided.
“I feel good with my bill. Because all the services that they got – not only will they continue to get it, but we will even upgrade it,” said Bismuth.
An Israeli official also rejected the claim that UNRWA is irreplaceable in a recent statement to Israeli media, insisting that the agency’s role in Gaza was already diminished, as other U.N. agencies such as UNICEF and the World Food Programme were taking over tasks like vaccinations and food distribution.
