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unrwa
By Criminalizing UNRWA, Israel Is Delegitimizing the United Nations
Israel's banning of UNRWA should represent an opportunity for those concerned about the standing of the U.N. to remind Israel that U.N. members who have no respect for international law deserve to be delegitimized themselves.
Nov 10, 2024
On October 28, the Israeli Knesset passed a second reading of two bills that effectively ban the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) from carrying out "any activity" in Israel and occupied Palestine.
Simply put, the decision is catastrophic, because UNRWA is the main international body responsible for the welfare of millions of Palestinians throughout the occupied territories, and throughout much of the region.
Israel followed its decision by attacking and damaging an UNRWA office in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. It was the Israeli government's way of demonstrating its seriousness regarding the matter.
A key player in the war on UNRWA was Jared Kushner, son-in-law of former U.S. President, and now President-elect, Donald Trump.
This is not the first time that Israel has pursued an anti-UNRWA agenda and, contrary to claims by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israel officials, the decision is not linked to the current genocidal war on Gaza, or the unfounded claims that UNRWA supports "terrorism."
An independent review commissioned by the U.N. revealed that Israel "made public claims that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations," but that it "has yet to provide supporting evidence of this."
Israeli claims, however, did a great deal of damage to the organization, as 13 countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Britain, Germany, and Italy, withheld badly needed funds which were helping Gaza stave off a horrific famine.
Eventually, most of these countries reinstated their financial support, though without apologizing to the Palestinians who were adversely impacted by these countries' initial, unfair decision.
Unrepenting, Israel continued to unleash its relentless war on the organization. "UNRWA workers involved in terrorist activities against Israel must be held accountable," Netanyahu said in a statement on October 28.
The anti-UNRWA rhetoric remains functional for Israel. Amplified by the ever-willing U.S. mainstream media, Israel has managed to keep UNRWA's name in the news, always associating it with "supporting terrorism." So, when the Israeli Knesset voted for the anti-UNRWA bills, mainstream media conveyed the news as if they were the only rational conclusion to an essentially fabricated story.
Israel's problem with UNRWA has little to do with the organization itself, but with its underlying political representation as a U.N. entity whose mission is predicated on providing "assistance and protection to Palestine refugees."
UNRWA was established in 1949 by the U.N. General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV). It began its operations on May 1, 1950, and with time, it became central to the survival of a large number of Palestinian refugee communities in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.
Many have rightly criticized the U.N. for failing to supplement UNRWA's humanitarian mandate with a political equivalent that would ultimately help Palestinians achieve their Right of Return in accordance with U.N. Resolution 194. For Israel, however, UNRWA remained problematic.
According to Tel Aviv's thinking, UNRWA's existence is a constant reminder that there is a distinct group of people called Palestinian refugees. And though UNRWA is not a political organization, the Palestinian refugee crisis and all related U.N. resolutions that emphasize the "inalienable" rights of these refugees are very political.
Taking advantage of the initial, albeit brief, sympathy with Israel worldwide, and the massive campaign of misinformation emanating from Israel and its allies, Netanyahu used October 7 as an opportunity to further demonize UNRWA. However, his campaign had started much earlier.
A key player in the war on UNRWA was Jared Kushner, son-in-law of former U.S. President, and now President-elect, Donald Trump. Kushner, who invested much time in helping Israel defeat the Palestinians once and for all, made UNRWA a key point in his plan. He vowed to carry out "sincere effort to disrupt" the work of the organization, a leaked email revealed.
Due to international rejection and solidarity, Kushner ultimately failed. Even the withholding of funds by the U.S. administration did not force the organization to shut down, although it did negatively impact the lives of millions of Palestinians.
The ongoing war on Gaza and the push to annex large parts of the West Bank represented a golden opportunity for Netanyahu and his extremist government to increase the pressure on UNRWA. They have been enabled by unconditional U.S. support, and the willingness of various Western governments to recklessly act upon Israel's false claims regarding the U.N. organization.
By allowing Israel to delegitimize the very organization responsible for enforcing international law, the U.N.'s crisis becomes much deeper.
The impassioned plea on October 30 by U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese reflects the frustration felt by many U.N.-affiliated officials regarding the growing irrelevance of the U.N.
In her speech, Albanese pointed out that, if the U.N.'s failures continue, its impact will become even "more and more irrelevant to the rest of the world," especially during these times of turmoil.
This irrelevance is already being felt by millions of Palestinians, mainly in Gaza, but also in the West Bank. Though Palestinians continue to withstand and reject and resist Israeli aggression, they are fed up with an international system that seems to offer them only words, but little action.
Israel's banning of UNRWA should represent an opportunity for those concerned about the standing of the United Nations, to remind Israel that U.N. members who have no respect for international law deserve to be delegitimized. This time, words must be accompanied by action. Nothing else will suffice.
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Netanyahu Replaces Fired Israeli Defense Minister With 'Another Genocidal Lunatic'
"Israel just doubled down on prolonging its genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza," said one observer.
Nov 05, 2024
Palestine defenders on Tuesday accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of swapping one "genocidal lunatic" for another after the right-wing leader fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and replaced him with Israel Katz, who was serving as foreign minister.
"Israel just doubled down on prolonging its genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza," journalist and genocide scholar Samira Mohyeddin said on social media following Netanyahu's moves.
Netanyahu cited what he called a "crisis of trust" that "gradually deepened" as his reason for the changes, which came as Israel is waging war on Gaza and Lebanon while bracing for Iranian retaliation for recent Israeli attacks on the Middle East nation.
"In the midst of a war, more than ever, full trust is required between the prime minister and the minister of defense," Netanyahu said Tuesday, according toThe Jerusalem Post. "This trust has cracked between myself and the defense minister."
Katz, a member of Netanyahu's Likud party, previously held several Cabinet posts, most recently as Israel's top diplomat. He was the minister of energy and infrastructure on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on Israel that left more than 1,100 people dead—at least some killed by fratricidal fire—and over 240 others kidnapped and taken to Gaza.
Two days later, Katz issued an order to "immediately cut off the water supply from Israel to Gaza."
"Electricity and fuel were cut off yesterday," he said. "What was will not be. All the civilian population in Gaza is ordered to leave immediately. We will win. They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave."
Katz's directive followed Gallant's
order for a "complete siege" of Gaza.
"There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed," Gallant said. "We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly."
These statements by Gallant and Katz are
cited in the International Court of Justice's January 26 provisional order for Israel to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza. Israel—which is on trial for alleged genocide at the ICJ—has been accused of ignoring this and subsequent orders issued by the tribunal.
On Tuesday, Israeli state media reported that the Israel Defense Forces has completed its division of Gaza into two parts, and that "there is no intention to allow the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes."
Katz has also come under fire for declaring United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres "persona non grata in Israel" for criticizing the country's war on Gaza, which has left more than 155,000 Palestinians in Gaza dead, wounded, or missing and millions more starving and sick.
While serving as Israel's foreign minister, Katz was also condemned for threatening "severe consequences" for nations that officially recognize Palestinian statehood. Nearly 150 of the 193 United Nations member states recognize Palestine.
Katz also raised eyebrows in 2022 after he
made a thinly veiled threat to ethnically cleanse Arab citizens of Israel. Responding to Israeli Arab students who displayed the Palestinian flag on college campuses, Katz said "remember '48," a reference to 1948, when Israel declared its independence amid an ethnic cleansing campaign in which more than 750,000 Arabs were expelled from Palestine to make way for Jewish settlement.
Palestinians call this mass dispossession and expulsion the
Nakba, which means "catastrophe" in Arabic.
"Remember our independence war and your Nakba," Katz said. "Don't stretch the rope too much... If you don't calm down, we'll teach you a lesson that won't be forgotten."
"Ask your elders—your grandfathers, and grandmothers—and they will explain to you that in the end, the Jews awaken, they know to defend themselves and the idea of the Jewish state," he added.
In one of his final acts as foreign minister, Katz on Monday
initiated the process of annulling a 1967 agreement between Israel and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which Israel accuses of being "infiltrated" by Hamas. The U.N. strongly refutes Israel's accusation.
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As Millions Starve in Gaza, Israel Terminates Agreement With UNRWA
"Restricting humanitarian access and at the same time dismantling UNRWA will add an additional layer of suffering to already unspeakable suffering," said the U.N. agency's commissioner-general.
Nov 04, 2024
Israel's Foreign Affairs Ministry on Sunday formally notified the United Nations that it has terminated a decades-old legal agreement governing the country's relations with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, a move that aid workers and advocacy groups say will spell further disaster for Gaza's besieged and famine-stricken population as winter approaches.
The director-general of the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry announced the decision to scrap the 1967 agreement in a letter to the president of the U.N. General Assembly, a message sent roughly a week after Israeli lawmakers approved legislation banning the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) from operating or providing services "in the sovereign territory of the state of Israel."
The new letter states that the legislation "will enter into effect following a three-month period."
The Washington Postreported Monday that Juliette Touma, UNRWA's communications director, said that "the agency expected to continue its work coordinating the distribution of aid in Gaza and the West Bank at the operational level."
But aid groups have warned that Israel's UNRWA ban could inflict fatal damage to humanitarian operations in Gaza and the West Bank, given Israeli control over access to the illegally occupied territories. The legislation Israeli lawmakers passed last week bars the government from issuing work permits to foreign UNRWA staff and prevents the military from coordinating with the aid agency.
"The human cost of this ban is immeasurable," Mara Kronenfeld, executive director of UNRWA USA, said in a statement last week. "This Israeli Knesset vote banning UNRWA is not merely an attack on the U.N. agency; it's an attack on the fundamental rights and dignity due to all human beings. The consequences of this ban could result in the loss of tens of thousands, if not more, precious Palestinian lives. Where is the humanity?"
"You can hear children crying, people screaming, people running for their lives, and it has been nonstop for 24 hours. There's nowhere to go. People are trapped."
The U.S., Israel's main ally and arms supplier, urged the Israeli government last week not to implement the newly passed legislation, even though the U.S. has yet to restore its own funding to UNRWA. The Biden administration suspended U.S. funding for UNRWA in January after Israel accused a small number of agency employees of taking part in the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel.
The U.N. fired nine UNRWA workers after an investigation determined that they "may have been involved" in the attack. UNRWA has roughly 13,000 staffers in the Gaza Strip, and the agency is the most important aid group operating in the enclave.
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, argued that by terminating its agreement with UNRWA, "Israel is also further breaking U.S. law prohibiting the restriction of aid delivery."
"It's a definitive rejection of an explicit demand in the Biden administration's October 13 letter and by law must result in halting U.S. arms and military aid to Israel," Williams added.
The Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry's announcement came as Israel's military continued its bombing campaign and ground attacks across Gaza. Reutersreported that at least a dozen Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes on Monday, including seven people in an attack on houses in northern Gaza.
"It is absolutely terrifying," Louise Wateridge, an UNRWA spokesperson, told Al Jazeera on Saturday, referring to conditions on the ground in Gaza. "You can hear children crying, people screaming, people running for their lives, and it has been nonstop for 24 hours. There's nowhere to go. People are trapped."
“It is absolutely terrifying.
You can hear children crying, people screaming, people running for their lives, and it has been nonstop for 24 hours. People are trapped." @UNWateridge tells @AJEnglish that people in #Gaza are facing relentless and continuous bombardments with… pic.twitter.com/sUo0YKbhOt
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) November 2, 2024
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA's commissioner-general, said Monday that Israeli authorities allowed an average of just 30 aid trucks to enter Gaza per day last month.
Prior to October 7, 2023, around 500 aid trucks were entering the enclave daily.
"This cannot meet the needs of over 2 million people, many of whom are starving, sick, and in desperate conditions," Lazzarini said Monday. "Restricting humanitarian access and at the same time dismantling UNRWA will add an additional layer of suffering to already unspeakable suffering."
"Only political will," he added, "can put an end to a politically made situation."
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