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UNRWA chief: Israel’s ban will be ‘disastrous’

January 29, 2025 at 11:31 am

UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini on April 30, 2024 [FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images]

Implementation of Israel’s ban on the UN Relief Agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) “will be disastrous”, the UNRWA chief told the UN Security Council yesterday, two days ahead of the planned implementation of the policy, Reuters reports.

The law, adopted in October, bans UNRWA’s operation on Israeli land including occupied East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in a move not recognised internationally and contact with Israeli authorities from 30 January.

“UNRWA must cease its operations and evacuate all premises it operates in Jerusalem, including the properties located in Maalot Dafna and Kafr Aqab” Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon told the council.

“Israel will terminate all collaboration, communication and contact with UNRWA or anyone acting on its behalf,” he said.

UNRWA said operations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank will also suffer. The UN agency provides aid, health and education services to millions in the occupied Palestinian territories and neighbouring Arab countries of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

“In two days, our operations in the occupied Palestinian territory will be crippled,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told the 15-member Security Council. “Full implementation of the Knesset legislation will be disastrous.”

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UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Security Council have described UNRWA as the backbone of the humanitarian aid response in Gaza, which has been decimated by 15 months of Israel’s genocidal war.

The United States, under new President Donald Trump, supports Israel’s “sovereign right” to close UNRWA’s offices in Jerusalem, acting US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea told the Security Council.

Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden had urged Israel to pause implementation of the law.

“UNRWA exaggerating the effects of the laws and suggesting that they will force the entire humanitarian response to halt is irresponsible and dangerous,” Shea said.

“What is needed is a nuanced discussion about how we can ensure that there is no interruption in the delivery of humanitarian aid and essential services,” she said.

“UNRWA is not and never has been the only option for providing humanitarian assistance in Gaza,” she claimed.

Other agencies working in Gaza and the West Bank include the children’s organization UNICEF, the World Food Programme, the World Health Organisation and the UN Development Programme. However, the UN has repeatedly said there is no alternative to UNRWA and that it would be Israel’s responsibility to replace its services. Israel has rejected UN claims that Israel would be responsible for filling any gap left by UNRWA.

“Since October 2023, we have delivered two-thirds of all food assistance, provided shelter to over a million displaced persons and vaccinated a quarter of a million children against polio,” Lazzarini told the Security Council.

“Since the ceasefire began, UNRWA has brought in 60 per cent of the food entering Gaza, reaching more than half a million people. We conduct some 17,000 medical consultations every day,” he added.

Israel has lobbied hard to have UNRWA closed as it is the only UN agency to have a specific mandate to look after the basic needs of Palestinian refugees. If the agency no longer exists, argues Israel, 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 of return since the late 1940s, even though its own membership of the UN was made conditional upon Palestinian refugees being allowed to return to their homes and land.

Lazzarini said yesterday that UNRWA has been the target of a “fierce disinformation campaign” to “portray the agency as a terrorist organisation”, adding that the “accusation” is a precedent in the UN’s work.

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