That 75 years have passed since the founding of UNRWA without the return of refugees and the implementation of UN Resolution No. 194 of 12/11/1948, this is a disgrace to the United Nations. In the 1940s, for example, the United Nations League intervened and returned hundreds of thousands of refugees from the South Caucasus, and in the 1990s, in just 10 years, the United Nations intervened and was able to return more than ten million refugees to their original homes in Rwanda, East Timor, Mozambique, Guatemala, Kosovo, and others.
But in contrast, it stands powerless in the face of the return of Palestinian refugees after more than seven decades, in blatant challenge to the will and steadfastness of the Palestinian refugee, who rejects all resettlement and displacement projects or even geographically moving away from the birthplace of his ancestors while awaiting return.
It is estimated that about 48% of Palestinian refugees still live in historic Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and the territories of 1948 (more than half a million displaced Palestinians), and 40% still live around Palestine in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Thus, the Palestinian refugee issue is considered the oldest refugee problem in the world and the largest problem, as about 70% of the Palestinian people are refugees.
Temporary agency
The “Interim” UNRWA agency – which still bears this name to this day – was established in accordance with Resolution 302 issued by the United Nations General Assembly on 12/8/1949, and its doors will be closed only 12 months after its establishment, during which UN Resolution No. 194 will be implemented. Issued by the General Assembly on 12/11/1948, which affirmed three rights: (return, compensation, and restoration of property).
The task was assigned to the committee that emerged from the resolution and was called the “International Conciliation Committee on Palestine,” which was formed from Turkey, France, and America. Importantly, and in accordance with Clause Four of the decision to establish UNRWA, an advisory committee was appointed consisting of 7 countries: (America, Britain, France, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Turkey), with the aim of “advising and assisting the Commissioner-General of UNRWA in implementing the tasks of the Agency’s mandate.”
After 75 years, the number of members of the Advisory Committee has become 29, in addition to 4 observer members: (The State of Palestine, the European Union, the League of Arab States, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation).
Although the work of the Conciliation Commission has been suspended since the early 1950s, it still exists in the United Nations to this day, and submits its annual report at the beginning of September./September of every year, with an emphasis on the tasks for which it was established, but what prevents its revival and the implementation of its tasks are the balance of power in the international political kitchen at the United Nations, and the practice of the policy of double standards and double standards in favor of the occupying state.
Terminating UNRWA does not nullify the right of return
The existence of UNRWA has always been linked to the right of return of Palestinian refugees, which is emphasized in the preamble of Resolution 302, Paragraph 5 and Paragraph 20 of the Resolution that the work of UNRWA must not prejudice the implementation of Paragraph 11 of Resolution 194.
Starting from May 1st/ May From the year 1950, UNRWA actually began providing its services: (health, relief, and education) to approximately 750,000 Palestinian refugees, so that after 75 years the number would reach 5,973,022 registered refugees, according to UNRWA’s annual report for the year 2023, currently living in 58 camps, recognized geographically and demographically by Host countries and UNRWA, in addition to hundreds of gatherings (19 camps in… The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, 8 camps in the Gaza Strip, 12 camps in Lebanon, 9 camps in Syria, and 10 camps in Jordan).
UNRWA defined the camp as “an area of land allocated by the host authorities to UNRWA in order to provide accommodation for Palestine refugees and establish facilities that meet their needs.” It also defined the Palestinian refugee as “a person who resided in Palestine during the period from 6/1/1946 until 5/15/1948, who lost his home and livelihood as a result of the 1948 war.”
UNRWA is the largest United Nations agency operating in the region, with the number of its employees until the year 2023 reaching approximately 30,000 local employees, and 150 international employees in its five areas of operations and presidential offices. It expresses international political responsibility towards the Palestinian refugee issue, unlike UNHCR. The Supreme Council for Refugee Affairs, which expresses humanitarian responsibility towards all refugees in the world.
In an indication of the agency’s political and legal importance, the United Nations General Assembly renews UNRWA’s mandate every three years. In the last renewal in 2023, the agency received 168 votes, and the new mandate continues until June 20, 2026.
Member States express the reasons for the renewal that UNRWA is a necessary and urgent humanitarian need for millions of Palestinian refugees and an element of security and stability in the region. The year 2024 was even marked by UNRWA winning a number of awards for its pivotal humanitarian role towards Palestinian refugees, including but not limited to: (Cyprus Peace Prize, Doha Forum Award, Ignacio El Correa Award from the Government of Spain) and the agency was even nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Some believe that ending the work of UNRWA will end the right of Palestinian refugees to return or that it will drop the term refugee from the Palestinian political agenda. The right of return is an individual and collective right and does not lapse with the passage of time, and is an inalienable right. In addition, this right is protected by international laws and resolutions, whether resolution 194, which came a full year before the founding of UNRWA, or at the level of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, Article 13, which speaks about the right of return for every refugee to his homeland. his country, even after a while, and is guaranteed by Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of March 1976, and also guaranteed by Article 5 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination of December 1969, and this right is guaranteed before all of the above by the will of More than 8 million Palestinian refugees.
Voluntary donation and the chronic crisis
When UNRWA was founded, voluntary financial contributions from countries were justified on the grounds that the agency was temporary and would close its doors soon with the return of refugees. However, after more than seven decades have passed, and with the increase in the number of refugees and their needs, it has become necessary for it to be transformed into a fixed budget from the United Nations, or at least one that is predictable. So that the program implementation plan is not affected.
States do not consider it their duty to provide hot meals, and what motivates them to provide financial shares to this agency or others is to achieve their interests. On the other hand, UNRWA is not a charity, civil society organization, or non-governmental organization in order to collect the amounts required to cover its services by itself. What is required is to protect, preserve, and support it from the United Nations itself, which established it.
In striking contradiction, the agency receives moral and political support and support from the General Assembly, the League of Arab States, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and international organizations, which is matched by a scarcity or even a decline in funding, and this affects the nature of the services provided by the agency: (health, education, relief, and infrastructure work). In camps, loan and protection programs), and with the instability of the annual budget and countries’ fulfillment of their financial pledges, this constitutes a state of confusion for the implementation of plans and programs and is one of the main obstacles to the continuity of the agency’s work and cutting off the lifeline of refugees.
Black era
The first term of US President Donald Trump represented the most prominent challenge to the continuity of the agency’s work, as it was cut off from US funding amounting to $360 million annually (representing about a third of the annual budget). It was also subjected to organized smear campaigns that complemented calls by the Israeli occupation state to write off the agency on the grounds that it was “anti-Semitic.” It “incites terrorism,” but the agency was able to survive thanks to the efforts of its former Commissioner General, Pierre Krähenbühl, who launched the “Dignity is Priceless” campaign.
While she was in occupied Jerusalem on June 11, 2017, Netanyahu asked the American ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, to work on dismantling UNRWA and transferring its services to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). On January 8, 2018, the newspaper “Israel Hayom” published Hebrew statements by Netanyahu that “UNRWA is an organization that perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem, and perpetuates the right of return that aims to eliminate Israel, and for these reasons It must be closed,” and that “the US administration must gradually reduce support for UNRWA by transferring funds to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.”
The newspaper said that Netanyahu “agrees with President Trump’s sharp criticism of UNRWA,” and that “UNRWA, the separate organization, was created 70 years ago only for Palestinian refugees while the High Commission exists for all other refugees in the world, which has led to a situation in which their descendants receive Palestinian refugees other than refugees support UNRWA, and in an additional 70 years there will be descendants of these descendants, so this situation must end.” On 7/29/2018, an American project was announced that determines The number of Palestinian refugees is only 40 thousand, and they are the remainder of those who lived through the Nakba in 1948, but as we said, this did not succeed in eliminating UNRWA.
After the Al-Aqsa flood, the occupation took ferocious steps towards UNRWA, perhaps the most prominent of which were allegations that its employees were linked to the Hamas movement and that they had participated in the October 7 operation. These allegations caused 18 countries to suspend their funding to the agency, but 17 of those countries backed down from the agreement. Funding was cut after it became clear that the overwhelming majority of the charges were malicious, and the US administration spoke of resuming funding for the agency in March 2025.
The occupation destroyed more than 190 of the agency’s facilities in Gaza, killed 247 of its employees, and caused the number of its employees in Gaza to decrease from 13,000 to approximately five thousand de facto.
UNRWA will be faced with a new, very serious challenge when US President Donald Trump takes office again on 20 January/ January 2025, which coincides with the Israeli Knesset’s approval of two laws on 10/28/2024 prohibiting the work of UNRWA in the occupied Palestinian territories, and they will enter into force on 01/30/2025, ignoring the statements of the President of the United Nations General Assembly, Philemon Yang, who considered these two laws, “ in violation of the United Nations Charter and international resolutions,” stressing that any attack on the agency “constitutes an attack on the international group that adopted the resolution 302 in 1949 by a large majority without objection.”
In light of the previous challenges, and in light of the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, submitting to Israeli pressure, the latest of which was his issuance of a decision to transfer international employees working for UNRWA from its headquarters in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem to other work centers, we will be facing a more aggressive and more dangerous phase for the continuity of the agency’s work, not only In the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, but also in the rest of the regions in which the agency works.
The opinions expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune Network.