Israel has banned the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) from operating in areas under Israeli control. The country’s parliament accused a dozen of UNRWA’s Gaza employees of involvement in the October 7, 2023 terror attack by Hamas, which claimed the lives of 1,200 Israeli civilians.
The two bills approving the ban received strong backing in parliament, with support from most of the opposition parties.
Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein said the “UNRWA long ago ceased to be a humanitarian aid agency, but in addition to it being an integral supporter of terror and hate, is an agency to eternalise poverty and suffering.”
The UNRWA was set up to provide employment and direct relief for Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Its mandate has broadened to include providing education, health care, and social services.
The agency, which has been operating for more than seven decades, has over 30,000 employees whose mandate is to provide aid for some 5.9 million Palestinian refugees within and outside Israel.
However, evidence was found at the beginning of this year that at least twelve UN staffers, including seven teachers and two other school staff, are members of Hamas and actively participated in the October 7th attacks in one way or another, including supplying bombs and ammunition. This information led dozens of donor countries to temporarily halt funding to UNRWA, although many have now resumed their funding.
The Wall Street Journal exposed Israeli intelligence reports that 1,200 UNRWA employees in Gaza are Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have uncovered a Hamas tunnel network under UNRWA’s Gaza headquarters, and have revealed how Hamas has used UNRWA-run schools as command centres and weapons storage. UNRWA-issued textbooks have openly glorified terrorism and incited Palestinian children against Jews from a very early age. UN Watch has compiled a dossier entitled “THE CASE AGAINST UNRWA: How UN schools use our tax money to teach Palestinian children to hate and kill Jews” which further documents this.
“There is a deep connection between the terrorist organisation (Hamas) and UNRWA, and Israel cannot put up with it,” Yuli Edelstein said. The politician called the bills “historic” and the “elimination of one of the arms of terror that acted under UN auspices.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country would “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.”
The Israeli ban comes a month after the country declared UN Secretary-General António Guterres persona non grata. Israel has accused him of turning the organisation into an “anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli body” which works as “a tool for Hamas propaganda.”
Despite the clear connection between UNRWA and Hamas, the Israeli ban was met with harsh disapproval by Western states who fear it would further worsen the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where Israel has been fighting Hamas militants for a year.
The United States said it was “deeply concerned” about the bill, reiterating the “critical” role the agency plays in distributing humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip. The German government “sharply” criticised the bill while the governments of Ireland, Norway, Spain, and Slovenia—which have all recognised a Palestinian state—issued a joint statement condemning the move.
Hamas reacted by saying “we consider this part of the Zionist war and aggression against our people.” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini condemned the decision, saying it set “a dangerous precedent.”
Unlike any other group in the world, Palestinians not only retain their refugee status even after being settled somewhere (including Gaza and the West Bank) but even pass it along to the next generation. This hereditary victimhood resulted in 750,000 original refugees over the last seven decades becoming nearly six million, who all, to a certain degree, depend on the UNRWA for their food, housing, and livelihood.
