Israel votes to ban UNRWA operations in Israel and occupied Palestinian territories

By Francesca Merlo

More than 43,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the 7th of October 2023. As this staggering figure continues to rise and hostilities expand across the region, the Israeli government has banned the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

The ban is scheduled to take effect in 90 days, resulting in the closure of UNRWA's facilities in the occupied Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, occupied East Jerusalem, and Gaza. This will effectively immobilise the agency, preventing it from fulfilling the mandate established by the UN General Assembly in 1949.

UNRWA is the leading humanitarian agency providing aid in Gaza and is considered a lifeline for Gazans. It has been under Israeli attacks since the war broke out just over one year ago. In this time hundreds of UNRWA workers have been killed in Israeli strikes.

Contact between UNRWA employees and Israeli officials will be banned within three months, severely limiting the agency's ability to operate in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank as cooperation with the Israeli military - which controls all crossings into Gaza - is essential for UNRWA to transfer aid into the territory. 

UNRWA in Gaza, employs 13,000 people, who run schools, healthcare clinics and other essential services.

UNRWA explain that the agency was created by the UN General Assembly on the 8th of December 1949, to provide basic support including food, healthcare and education to tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees. More than 700,000 Palestinians were forcefully displaced in the time leading up to Israel’s creation in 1948, which Palestinians remember as the Nakba or “the catastrophe”.

The head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, posted on X saying “This is the latest in the ongoing campaign to discredit UNRWA… These bills will only deepen the suffering of Palestinians”.

The UNRWA operations are spread across the occupied West Bank – including East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, and as the war spreads across all these nations and displaced Palestinians seek new refuge, the fear is that the newly imposed ban will have an utterly devastating effect.