When he arrives at the Allenby Bridge, the crossing point between Jordan and the occupied West Bank, Philippe Lazzarini, head of UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, no longer enjoys diplomatic immunity. He no longer has the "yellow card," the document conferring this protection on senior UN officials in Israel, which controls the Palestinian side of the border. The luggage of Lazzarini, who lives in Amman but is accustomed to visiting Jerusalem, is searched. Before the war in Gaza, he had a one-year residence permit in Israel; since then, the Israeli state has only granted him a one-month visa. "This is unheard of for a UNRWA commissioner general," said the 60-year-old Swiss citizen.

Since the fall 2023 outbreak, of the war between Israel and Hamas, which has caused the death of over 38,000 Palestinians according to local authorities, the agency has been the target of an unprecedented Israeli destabilization campaign. After trying to discredit it with its backers, by accusing some of its employees of being involved in the attack perpetrated by Hamas on October 7 (1,200 deaths on the Israeli side), Israel is considering having it classified as a "terrorist organization" by its parliament. In the meantime, it is blocking the entry of its aid convoys into the Gaza Strip and hindering the movement of its teachers and doctors in the West Bank. For the ultranationalist coalition in power in Jerusalem, UNRWA, guardian of Palestinian refugees' right of return and ultimate bulwark against the total collapse of Gaza, is the agency to destroy. And its head, Lazzarini, is a nuisance who must be ousted.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called on him to resign. Lazzarini can no longer visit the Palestinian enclave, which is under a deluge of fire. During his four visits between October and January, he made it his "duty" to show its inhabitants that they had "not been forgotten." He was vilified on social media by a cohort of pro-Israeli internet users, called a Hamas collaborator, a liar or naive. Faced with this barrage, the commissioner general – the "CG," as his teams call him – grew in stature and decided to fight back.

Before October 7, 2023, he didn't have a reputation for being a fighter. According to Jalal Al Husseini, a researcher at the French Institute of the Near East in Amman who's knowledgeable about UNRWA, he was even "close to the Swiss caricature: We take things step by step, without making waves." A former employee went further, criticizing Lazzarini for having long been more reactive than proactive: "Other bosses pounded their fists on the table when the Israelis put obstacles in their way."

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