Israel bans UN agency for Palestinian refugees

2024-10-28 22:01:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Israel passed a law on Monday banning the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, from working in the country. This legislation has the potential to affect the agency's work in war-torn Gaza.

Lawmakers who drafted the law were called out on the involvement of several UNRWA staff members in the October 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel.

The legislation has alarmed the United Nations and some of Israel's Western allies, who fear it could further worsen the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, where Israel has been fighting Hamas - the terrorist group declared by the United States - for a year. The United States and the European Union.

The ban on UNRWA's work in the Palestinian territories or elsewhere is not mentioned in this law. UNRWA, the United Nations Palestine Refugee Agency, has tens of thousands of employees and provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

The agency has long had strained relations with Israel, but relations have deteriorated significantly since the Gaza war began. Israel has repeatedly called for UNRWA to be disbanded.

The UN said in August that nine UNRWA staff may have been involved in the October 7 attack and that they were fired as a result.

"If the United Nations is not willing to cleanse this organization of terrorism, of Hamas activists, then we must take measures to ensure that they can never harm our people again," said Israeli MP Sharren Haskel.

A spokeswoman for UNRWA said before the vote that the proposed law would be "disastrous" and would have a significant impact on the humanitarian operation in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

"We know that previous efforts to replace UNRWA and provide humanitarian aid have failed miserably," said Juliette Touma, the organization's spokeswoman.

The law has the potential to directly affect UNRWA institutions in East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed through an internationally unrecognized decision.

Before the legislation was passed, foreign ministers from France, Germany, Britain, Japan, South Korea, Canada and Australia released a statement expressing "deep concern"./REL