What could Israeli legislation on UN aid agencies mean for Gaza?

Israel’s parliament has passed two bills that could prevent the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees, Gaza’s main aid provider, from continuing its work.

The regulations ban UNRWA from operating in Israel, designate it a terrorist organization and sever all ties between the agency and the Israeli government.

It is the culmination of a long-running campaign against the agency, which Israel says has been infiltrated by Hamas. But supporters say Israel’s real goal is to sideline the Palestinian refugee issue.

The agency is Gaza’s main aid distributor and provides education, health care and other essential services to millions of Palestinian refugees throughout the region, including the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The head of the agency, Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini, after the vote on X (formerly Twitter) called the move “unprecedented” and said the laws “will only deepen the suffering of Palestinians, especially in Gaza, where people have been going through more than a year of pure hell.”

Israel accuses the agency of turning a blind eye to workers it considers to be Hamas, diverting aid and using UNRWA facilities for military purposes.

Israel says a dozen of its 13,000 workers in Gaza took part in the October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel. The agency denies knowingly helping armed groups and says it is moving quickly to clear its staff of all suspected militants.

– How will the bills hinder UNRWA?

One of the laws passed on Monday evening bans all UNRWA activities and services on Israeli soil and is expected to come into force in three months.

The second bill designates UNRWA as a terrorist organization, severs all links between government employees and UNRWA, and strips its staff of legal immunity.

Taken together, the bills likely prohibit the agency from operating in Israel and the Palestinian territories because Israel controls access to both Gaza and the West Bank. This could force the agency to move its headquarters from Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

Lazzarini warned earlier this month that humanitarian operations in Gaza “could fall apart” if the legislation is passed, disrupting the delivery of food, shelter and health care as winter arrives.

Gaza’s population of about 2.3 million is almost entirely dependent on aid to survive. About 90% of the population was displaced.

Hundreds of thousands of people live in tent camps and schools converted into shelters, most of them run by UNRWA. Experts say hunger is widespread.

More than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s campaign in Gaza in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attack, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its calculations.

Israel is reportedly considering taking over the aid distribution itself or subcontracting it, but has not yet presented a concrete plan. Any such effort would likely require large numbers of troops and other resources at a time when Israel is fighting a two-front war in Gaza and Lebanon.

Other U.N. agencies and aid groups say there is no replacement for UNRWA, which also runs 96 schools with about 47,000 students, three vocational training centers and 43 health centers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

– What is the history of UNRWA?

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East was established to help the estimated 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s founding.

UNRWA supporters say Israel hopes to erase the Palestinian refugee issue by abolishing the agency. Israel argues that refugees should be permanently resettled in other countries, and Israeli opponents of the agency have suggested that ending UNRWA’s services would force them to do so.

Palestinians say refugees and their descendants, who now number almost six million, should be able to exercise their right under international law to return home. Israel refuses, claiming that the result will be a Palestinian majority within its borders.

This issue was one of the most serious in the peace process that stopped in 2009.

UNRWA runs schools, health clinics, infrastructure projects and relief programs in refugee camps that have expanded into urban neighborhoods in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

– Why is there a dispute about UNRWA’s neutrality?

Israel claims, without providing evidence, that hundreds of Palestinian fighters work for UNRWA and that more than a dozen employees took part in the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.

UNRWA immediately dismissed employees accused of involvement in the attack, in which Hamas-led militants killed approximately 1,200 people and abducted approximately 250.

An independent investigation earlier this year found that UNRWA has “robust” mechanisms to ensure its neutrality, but pointed to gaps in implementation, including staff publicly expressing political views and textbooks containing “problematic content” in UNRWA-run schools.

UNRWA says it thoroughly investigates all allegations of abuse and holds staff accountable, and shares lists of all its employees with Israel and host countries. He says Israel has largely ignored his requests to provide evidence of its claims against the workers.

Israel has repeatedly attacked UN schools converted into shelters, claiming that Hamas militants operate there. He also says he discovered tunnels running near or under UNRWA facilities.

UNRWA has long been the largest single employer in Gaza, where the population has been impoverished by years of Israeli and Egyptian blockade.

Hamas has ruled the territory since 2007 and conducts civilian political operations alongside its armed wing.

The militant wings of Hamas and other groups are highly secretive, and their members are virtually unknown outside intelligence agencies. This complicates civilian organizations’ efforts to vet workers.

Fatah Sharif, a UNRWA teacher in southern Lebanon, was killed along with his family in an Israeli airstrike last month. It later emerged that he was a senior Hamas commander, which he kept secret.

UNRWA chief Lazzarini said Sharif was suspended without pay in March after the agency learned he belonged to the Hamas political party and an investigation was launched. He said it was only after his death that he knew Sharif was a militant commander.

– Does UNRWA have international support?

Several Western countries suspended funding for UNRWA following allegations related to the October 7 attack. It has since been restored by everyone except the United States, which was its largest donor.

The Biden administration recently warned Israel that if it did not allow more aid to Gaza, it could lose some of the key U.S. military aid it has relied on throughout the war.

The letter, sent by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to their Israeli counterparts, said they shared Israeli concerns about the “serious allegations” of UNRWA workers involved in the October 7 attack and Hamas’ “misuse of UNRWA facilities.”

But it said that enforcing the laws’ restrictions “would destroy humanitarian assistance in Gaza at this critical time… which could have consequences under relevant U.S. law and policy.”

A joint statement last week by Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom expressed “serious concern” about the regulations.

It said the agency was providing “vital and life-saving humanitarian assistance” that, without it, would be “seriously hampered, if not impossible.”