Israel’s Insistence on Banning UNRWA: What Does This Mean for Palestinians?

28th January 2025

6 minutes read

Israel’s Insistence on Banning UNRWA: What Does This Mean for Palestinians?

Israel is determined to ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Gaza, despite the humanitarian consequences this entails.

Israel has ordered UNRWA to vacate its headquarters in East Jerusalem by next Thursday, following the Israeli Knesset’s passage of a law on October 28 banning the UN agency’s operations in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Israel has yet to clarify how it plans to enforce this law, which seeks to end all collaboration between the Israeli government and UNRWA. If implemented on Thursday, it could cripple the agency’s operations in the West Bank and Gaza, according to a report by The Guardian.

This insistence by Israel comes as UNRWA and other relief organizations have managed to deliver aid to Gaza as part of a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel, after months of Israeli-imposed obstacles and amid warnings of an imminent famine in some areas of the Gaza Strip.

Speaking to The Guardian, Sam Rose, Acting Director of Emergency Operations at UNRWA, stated that the agency had 7,000 supply trucks stationed outside Gaza and 1,500 more trucks in the process of being purchased. He estimated that the agency had distributed food parcels to one million people in the ten days following the ceasefire’s implementation. He also noted that the agency was prepared to send stocks, including tarpaulins and mattresses, for 1.6 million people.

The Israeli government claims that UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7, 2023, attacks and that Hamas infiltrated the agency, thereby compromising its neutrality. In response, the United Nations has prepared two independent reports debunking these claims, with clear evidence of UNRWA’s neutrality.

If Israel fully implements its non-cooperation measures, it would mark the first forced expulsion of a UN agency by a member state. This issue prompted the UN General Assembly in December to vote for a request to the International Court of Justice to issue an urgent advisory opinion.

Meanwhile, two Palestinian human rights groups are seeking a Supreme Court injunction in Israel to delay the law’s implementation, arguing that it violates Palestinians’ basic human rights.

Despite this, Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, wrote to UN officials last Friday, emphasizing the need to vacate UNRWA’s headquarters by Thursday.

Israel has not provided further details on how the Knesset’s laws will be implemented. However, UNRWA employees believe this will include denying visas to international staff, blocking any UNRWA-branded aid from crossing into Gaza, severing contact between the agency and Israeli forces, and likely freezing UNRWA’s bank accounts.

Sam Rose stated: “We will find ourselves in a major gap,” noting that nearly half of the food sent to Gaza is organized through UNRWA’s distribution network, even if not all of it bears the agency’s label.

He added: “In the first three days following the start of the ceasefire, we distributed food parcels to nearly 300,000 people in the southern Gaza valley—around 15% of the population in this area.” He continued: “At this rate, UNRWA will have reached one million people in the next ten days. It’s an enormous increase, and no other organization has the capacity or scale to do our work.”

While Rose questioned using the number of trucks entering Gaza as a reliable metric for the amount of aid delivered, since some trucks may arrive half-empty, over 2,400 trucks entered Gaza in the four days following the ceasefire—a figure higher than the total allowed into Gaza during the entire month of October.

However, last Friday, Danny Danon, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, wrote to UN officials confirming the necessity of evacuating the UNRWA headquarters by Thursday.

Israel has refused to elaborate on how the laws passed by the Knesset will be implemented, but UNRWA staff believe this will likely result in the refusal of visas for international staff, the banning of any aid marked with the UNRWA label from crossing the border into Gaza, severing connections between the agency and Israeli forces, and likely freezing the UNRWA’s bank accounts.

Sam Rose stated, “We’ll find ourselves in a big hole,” pointing out that about half of the food being sent to Gaza is organized through UNRWA’s distribution network, even if not all of it carries the agency’s label.

He added, “In the first three days after the ceasefire started, we distributed food packages to nearly 300,000 people in the southern Gaza Strip, about 15% of the population in this area.” He continued, “At this rate, UNRWA would have reached one million people in the next ten days… It’s a huge increase, and there is no other organization with the capacity and scale needed to do our work.”

While Rose questioned the use of the number of trucks entering Gaza as a reliable measure of the quantity of aid entering the area, he noted that over 2,400 trucks entered Gaza in the four days following the ceasefire, a higher number than the total permitted entry during the entire month of October.

Rose warned that due to UNRWA’s focus on primary healthcare and education services, women and children will bear the brunt of any disruption to the agency, which would significantly undermine the overall humanitarian effort.

According to The Guardian, the impact of the ban could be considered a violation of the ceasefire. With US President Donald Trump’s announcement of plans to deport millions from Gaza, some UN employees fear that Israel and the US might view the closure of UNRWA as a prerequisite to convincing Palestinians to travel to Jordan and Egypt.

While the United Nations has refused to set up emergency plans to have other agencies take over UNRWA’s responsibilities, the UN may have no other choice, and the World Food Program might be the most logical alternative, given it is an agency traditionally run by the Americans.

Others argue that the UN should not back down but instead use its leverage from the strong political support that UNRWA enjoys globally.

UNRWA had 13,000 staff members working in Gaza, but this number dropped to around 5,000 during the war, partly due to Israel’s destruction of schools and healthcare centers.

Sam Rose warned that stopping the aid flow to Gaza could create a political vacuum, forcing Palestinians to turn back to Hamas for services.

In front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Elise Stefanik, Trump’s nominee for US Ambassador to the UN, stated that Washington’s policy is to stop funding UNRWA and that Israel has a biblical right to all of the West Bank.

In 2023, the United States provided $422 million to UNRWA, twice the amount donated by any other country. As a result, the agency is suffering from a financial shortfall.