• United Nations
• Middle East and North Africa
• Amy Mackinnon
• John Haltiwanger

January 30, 2025, 6:30 PM View Comments ()

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report, where we’re consuming unspeakable amounts of coffee after days of watching confirmation hearings.

Here’s what’s on tap today: what Israel’s UNRWA ban means for Palestinians, U.S. private security contractors head to Gaza, and an escalating conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Israel’s ban on UNRWA, the primary United Nations aid agency for Palestinians, went into effect on Jan. 30, and it’s expected to have rippling consequences across the region—particularly in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip. UNRWA is now barred from operating on Israeli soil, and Israeli authorities are prohibited from interacting with the U.N. agency.

The ban, a product of two pieces of legislation passed by the Knesset last October, is going into force amid a fragile cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, and it threatens to inject more instability into an already precarious situation.

“Across the Gaza Strip, Palestinians are turning to UNRWA—the agency they have known all their lives—for support,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told the U.N. Security Council on Jan. 28. “Curtailing our operations now—outside a political process, and when trust in the international community is so low—will undermine the cease-fire. It will sabotage Gaza’s recovery and political transition.”

What is UNRWA? Formally known as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA provides everything from food and education to health care and shelter for millions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. It was founded in 1949 to aid Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled from their homes because of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

The U.N. agency, which Lazzarini said has provided roughly two-thirds of all food aid to Gaza since the war began and 60 percent of the food since the cease-fire began, is widely viewed as a crucial lifeline for Palestinians. At Tuesday’s U.N. Security Council meeting, the United States was the only member to express support for Israel banning UNRWA. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom’s deputy ambassador to the U.N., James Kariuki, called for UNRWA’s “vital work” in providing access to education and health care to be “protected” in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and East Jerusalem.

Why is the ban happening? Israel, which has clashed with the U.N. for years, has accused UNRWA of being “infiltrated by Hamas” and alleged that seven of the agency’s employees participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on the country.

A U.N. investigation into the allegations found that nine staffers “may have” had affiliations with Hamas, and they were fired as a result. But UNWRA, which has roughly 13,000 staffers in Gaza, has rejected Israel’s claims that it’s been overrun by Hamas. The European Union has also thrown cold water on Israel’s allegations. Many countries paused funding to UNRWA after Israel initially made the accusations of ties to Hamas but have since reversed that decision. U.S. funding to UNRWA has been frozen since last year.

What happens next? Israel ordered UNRWA to vacate all premises in occupied East Jerusalem and cease its operations in them by Jan. 30. Some international staff have now been forced to leave because of the ban, which has led to issues with obtaining or extending visas. But much remains up in the air in terms of how the ban will be enforced.

“Our clinics across the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem are open while the humanitarian operation in Gaza continues,” UNRWA posted on X. “We are committed to staying and delivering.”

Juliette Touma, an UNRWA spokesperson, told the Guardian that the agency’s East Jerusalem headquarters is “still there, and the flag is still up” but that they are “in the dark.”

“We have not received any instructions from Israel how the ban will be enforced beyond being told to vacate,” Touma said.

On Jan. 29, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a petition from a Palestinian human rights group that contested the ban, noting in its ruling that the legislation “prohibits UNRWA activity only on the sovereign territory of the state of Israel” but not in Gaza and the West Bank.

Still, the ban is expected to make it far more difficult for UNRWA to deliver aid to Gaza, as bringing assistance into the enclave requires coordination with Israeli authorities, which is now prohibited by law. “The effects are not going to be all felt immediately, but they’re going to magnify and amplify in waves as time goes on,” Daniel Forti, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, told SitRep.

“Half of the international aid that’s been brought into Gaza since the beginning of the Oct. 7 war is likely going to stop. Medical consultations are likely going to stop,” Forti said. “It’s very hard to see how this is going to bring more stability to Gaza at a time when, just a few days after a cease-fire, that’s all the Palestinian people really want.”

Israel has contended that other agencies and organizations can step in for UNRWA. “There are multiple alternative organizations to UNRWA—including U.N. agencies, international NGOs, and foreign countries—that are already operating to facilitate humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip,” said Oren Marmorstein, a spokesperson for Israel’s foreign ministry.

But aid organizations and experts say UNRWA cannot be easily replaced. “No other organization can replace UNRWA’s health provision in Gaza and the West Bank,” Médecins Sans Frontières posted on X.

Suggestions that “any other agencies and organizations, including within the U.N. system, can serve as a replacement for UNRWA are just incorrect,” Forti said. This is both because of the scope of UNRWA’s mandate and the fact that, in addition to providing lifesaving humanitarian services daily, Forti said, the agency is the main provider of health care and education for Palestinian in Gaza.

“It’s impossible to say that any organization could quickly or sustainably step into the void,” Forti said.

Trump administration hires:

• Ricky Gill, senior director for South and Central Asian affairs on the National Security Council
• Jared Novelly, nominee to serve as U.S. ambassador to New Zealand
• Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security
• Ludovic Hood, chief of staff and counselor to the special presidential envoy for Russia and Ukraine, Keith Kellogg
• Chris Rocheleau, acting Federal Aviation Administration administrator

Gina Raimondo, former President Joe Biden’s secretary of commerce, is joining the Council on Foreign Relations as a distinguished fellow.

What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.

U.S. private security contractors in Gaza. Dozens of U.S. special forces veterans are set to help operate a key security checkpoint in Gaza. UG Solutions, a North Carolina-based security firm, is hiring close to 100 veterans to serve in this capacity, according to Reuters. Some have already been recruited and are currently in Gaza, though the total number is unclear. Another U.S. firm, Safe Reach Solutions, will also reportedly be involved.

The use of private security contractors has long been controversial due to the murky circumstances under which they operate and issues of accountability. In Iraq, private security contractors working for the U.S. government shot and killed more than a dozen civilians in what became known as the Nisour Square massacre.

Adding armed U.S. security contractors into the mix in Gaza carries several risks, including the potential for Americans to be involved in fighting with militants at a time when negotiators are trying to prolong a cease-fire. Three U.S. security guards were killed in an attack on a diplomatic convoy in Gaza in 2003.

Milley stripped of clearance. Mark Milley, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and a Trump critic, has been stripped of his security detail and clearance by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who has also ordered an investigation into the “conduct” of the retired four-star general to determine whether his rank should be reduced.

Milley had a security detail due to threats from Iran over the U.S. strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in 2020. Trump’s former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and national security advisor, John Bolton, both of whom have faced similar threats from Tehran, have also had their security details removed on Trump’s orders. Bolton has publicly criticized Trump, and the president appears to have soured on Pompeo, as well.

In a press conference on Jan. 28, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump did not believe American taxpayers should fund security for former officials. “There’s nothing stopping these individuals that you mentioned from obtaining private security,” she said.

DRC fighting. South African Defense Minister Angie Motshekga warned this week that any further attacks on its peacekeepers by the Rwandan-backed M23 militia, which launched a major offensive on the city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo last week, would be a “declaration of war.” Thirteen soldiers from South Africa, serving as part of an international peacekeeping mission, have been killed in Goma assault.

Half a million people have been displaced by the fighting in January alone, Congolese Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner told the U.N. Security Council this week.

Emergency response units assess airplane wreckage in the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, on Jan. 30.Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Monday, Feb. 3: Talks on the second phase of the Israel-Hamas cease-fire and hostage deal are expected to begin.

Tuesday, Feb. 4: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House.

Wednesday, Feb.  5: Legislative elections will be held for the Delhi Assembly in New Delhi.

“Are you supportive of these onesies?”

—U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, asking Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human Services, during his Senate confirmation hearing whether he supports the anti-vaccine slogans printed on baby onesies being sold by a nonprofit organization that Kennedy co-founded.

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