Israel’s ban on UNRWA is appalling – if not surprising

On October 28, the Israeli Knesset voted to ban all activity and official contact with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, to be implemented within three months.

As former UN staff, we are appalled but not surprised.

For decades, Israel has been on the warpath against UNRWA and the United Nations as a whole, accusing the multilateral body and any of its members who criticize its behavior of anti-Israel bias. Israel has not complied with UN General Assembly or Security Council resolutions and has scoffed at the decisions and advisory opinions of the International Court of Justice. He has never cooperated with UN human rights representatives or commissions of inquiry. Just a month ago, Netanyahu arrogantly called the UN a “swamp of anti-Semitic bile.” In an unprecedented move, Israel even declared the UN Secretary General himself persona non grata.

Israel has long accused UNRWA of perpetuating the plight of Palestinian refugees through its maintenance of refugee camps and its registration process that provides some form of identity and legal status. In his arrogance, he seems to think that by banning UNRWA, he can get rid of the Palestinian refugee problem as a whole.

But UNRWA does not perpetuate anything by itself. It is simply implementing the mandate given by the United Nations General Assembly, which created it in 1949 after the new state of Israel refused to allow Palestinian refugees back to their homes.

Rather, Palestinian statelessness and refugee status are perpetuated by Israel’s occupation of what remains of Palestine and the ongoing displacement of the Palestinian people that occurs today in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.

Gaza is a refugee ghetto: of its total population of approximately two million Palestinians, more than 70% are registered refugees, approximately 1.5 million. This is not the first time Hamas and Israel have fought, but it was by far the most brutal for civilians. In quieter times, UNRWA’s 14,000 staff in Gaza run schools, hospitals, training centers and social assistance services.

In emergencies, like now, they are a lifeline for providing and distributing basic aid. In the past year, some 44,000 Gazans have been killed and untold thousands left under the rubble, while thousands more are maimed, starved and left homeless. UNRWA schools and warehouses became makeshift shelters. Horrifyingly, about 70% of these shelters were bombed, almost all filled with desperate families. No other agency has built the infrastructure and staff capacity to handle even the trickle of aid Israel is letting into Gaza, aid that is already insufficient to prevent starvation and disease.

Israel has never been held accountable for its contemptuous treatment of the UN, let alone its contempt for civilian life. From December 2023, The US has used its veto power 45 times to protect Israel and shield it from liability for violations of international law and the UN Charter. This empowered them to act with impunity and brute force, without regard for human rights or humanitarian law, let alone its obligations as a member state of the United Nations. If these recently passed bills are implemented at the end of the scheduled 90 days, then Israel’s membership in the United Nations must be viewed as moot.

UNRWA may very well survive this Israeli move, but the people of Gaza may not want more suffering on the Palestinians in the West Bank, including Jerusalem.

What may not survive is the reputation of the United States, already in tatters. Despite its empty commitment to humanitarian aid and multilateralism, the US is increasingly isolated as the sole supporter of a brutal regime that cares nothing for international cooperation.