UK, Canada, France, Germany among those voicing concern over Israel bill banning UNRWA

The foreign ministers of Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom have expressed in a joint statement their grave concern over legislation currently under consideration by the Israeli Knesset intended to revoke the privileges and immunities of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Wafa has reported. If passed into law, Israeli state entities and officials would be forbidden from having any contact with UNRWA, and the agency’s presence in Israel would be forbidden.

“UNRWA provides essential and life-saving humanitarian aid and basic services to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and throughout the region,” said the signatories of the joint statement issued by the Representative Office of Japan to Palestine. “Without its work, the provision of such assistance and services, including education, healthcare and fuel distribution in Gaza and the West Bank would be severely hampered if not impossible, with devastating consequences on an already critical and rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation, particularly in northern Gaza.”

The statement stressed that UNRWA and other UN organisations and agencies must be fully able to deliver humanitarian aid and assistance to those who need it most, in order to fulfil their mandates effectively.

The foreign ministers jointly urged the Israeli government to abide by its international obligations, keep the reserve privileges and immunities of UNRWA untouched and live up to its responsibility to facilitate full, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian assistance in all its forms, as well as the provision of sorely-needed basic services to the civilian population in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israel has long lobbied to have UNRWA closed as it is the only UN agency with a specific mandate to look after the basic needs of Palestinian refugees. If the agency no longer exists, argues the apartheid state, then the refugee issue must no longer exist, and the legitimate right for Palestinian refugees to return to their land will be unnecessary. Israel has denied that right since the late 1940s, even though its own membership of the UN was conditional upon Palestinian refugees being allowed to return to their homes and land.

READ: Israel could get expelled from UN if it bans UNRWA, officials warn