Israel has repeatedly accused UNRWA employees of participation in the October 7 attack without providing proof.
The ban on the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in Israel has entered into force, which has an impact on the organization’s rescue work in Gaza and in the occupied West Bank.
On Thursday, the law, which was adopted in October, prohibited UNRWA from operating on Israeli land, including in occupied East Jerusalem, and contact with the Israeli authorities is prohibited.
For over 70 years, UNRWA has supported Palestinian refugees through the Middle East, but the organization has often faced Israeli officials for its work.
Israel has repeatedly accused UNRWA employees of participation in the October 7 attack without providing proof.
Before the ban, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel, Oren Marmorstein, said that “humanitarian aid is not equal to an UNRWA”, adding that there are “alternative” organizations which can Facilitate aid to the Gaza Strip.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court of Israel rejected a request from the Human Rights Group Adalah to challenge the prohibition.
However, the court noted that the legislation “prohibits the activity of UNRWA only on the sovereign territory of the State of Israel” but “does not prohibit such an activity in the fields of Judea-Samaria (West Bank occupied) and the Gaza Strip “.
UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma expressed her concerns about the potential consequences of the ban, saying to Tel Aviv Tribune: “If the prohibition takes place and we are not able to operate to Gaza, the need, could collapse.
“Faithful disinformation campaign”
On Tuesday, the general commissioner of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, told the United Nations Security Council that his organization had delivered “two thirds of all food aid, provided shelter to more than a million people moved ”since October 2023.
“Since the start of the ceasefire, UNRWA has brought 60% of the food entering Gaza, reaching more than half a million people. We perform some 17,000 medical consultations every day, “he said.
Lazzarini added that UNRWA had been the victim of a “fierce disinformation campaign” to “represent the agency as a terrorist organization”.
In April 2024, the former French Minister of Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna published a report for the UN investigation into Israeli claims that UNRWA had members of Hamas.
The report revealed that although there are “problems linked to neutrality”, Israel has no evidence in support of its allegations.
‘Without that, we would stir’ ‘
Since its creation in 1949 to serve and manage the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians forcibly moved by the creation of Israel a year earlier, UNRWA symbolized the hope of refugees to return home.
The organization – employing 30,000 employees, mainly Palestinian refugees as well as a small number of international employees – offers emergency, education, health care and social services at least 5.9 Millions of Palestinians in Palestine and neighboring countries.
Sitting in front of the rubble of his house destroyed in Khan Younis, Abu Nael Hamouda, 74, described UNRWA as “a lifeline through generations” – which provided education, health care and food in peacetime and war.
“A UNRWA is the lung whose Palestinian refugees breathe,” explains Hamouda, who is himself from what was formerly the Palestinian city of Majdal. He was forced to evacuate Majdal when he was a child because he became a game of Ashkelon in Israel.
“Without that, we would stir. My children and grandchildren went to UNRWA schools, we were treated in UNRWA hospitals, and that helped us put roofs above our heads. »»
