The UN agency in charge of Palestinian refugees was dispatched in two short hours by two almost unanimous votes in parliament, the Knesset – and received barely any notice in Israel. Yet it was a far-reaching act, calling into question both a United Nations agency, UNRWA, now prevented from operating, and the fate of humanitarian aid in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories. Beyond this, the future of the inhabitants of these territories, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem, was at stake.
On Monday, October 28, Israeli ministers approved two bills by a clear majority, the effect of which is to technically put an end to the activities of UNRWA. The prospect of this vote, preceded by two committee reviews in recent months, had alarmed the United Nations, as well as many countries – the United States, France and the United Kingdom in particular. But Israel's lawmakers overrode international warnings.
The first law passed by the Knesset on Monday evening bans UNRWA activities from Israeli "sovereign territory," including East Jerusalem, which was conquered during the Six-Day War in 1967 and annexed by a Knesset vote in 1980. East Jerusalem is still considered to be part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory by the United Nations and most of the international community. The first bill, introduced by Boaz Bismuth, an MP for Likud (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party), will block UNRWA's activities in East Jerusalem, particularly in the field of education, and facilitate the eviction process of premises occupied by the agency.
On Monday, Bismuth said that meetings had been held in advance to ensure that the Jerusalem municipality would be able to replace UNRWA at a moment's notice, without going into further detail. On Monday evening, he added: "Threats and pressure from the international community to block my bill have failed." In a statement, he described UNRWA as a "humanitarian agency for Hamas." Without providing any proof, the Israeli government says it has calculated that around 10% of the agency's employees (of whom there are 30,000 in total, including 13,000 in Gaza) are affiliated with Hamas or Islamic Jihad. According to a UN investigation published in August, "nine staff members [from the agency] may have been involved" in the October 7, 2023, massacres that resulted in the deaths of 1,200 people in Israel. But the UN agency said it is waiting, in vain, for evidence to back up Israeli accusations involving hundreds of people. An audit of the agency's neutrality published in April by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna found that UNRWA remained "irreplaceable and indispensable."
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