Israel’s parliament has voted to pass legislation banning the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) from operating wislfinisher Israel and Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, wislfinisher three months.
Contact between Unrwa participateees and Israeli officials will also be banned, harshly restricting the agency’s ability to run in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Co-operation with the Israeli military – which deal withs all traverseings into Gaza – is vital for Unrwa to transfer aid into the war-torn territory. It is the main UN organisation laboring on the ground there.
Unrwa staff will no extfinisheder have lterrible immunity wislfinisher Israel, and the agency’s headquarters in East Jerusalem will be shutd.
A number of countries, including the US, the UK and Germany, have transmited solemn trouble about the shift. UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy called it “toloftyy wrong”, while Unrwa’s chief Philippe Lazzarini said it “will only proset upen the suffering of Palestinians”.
The US State Department said Unrwa joined a “critical” role in distributing humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip. Almost all of the enclave’s population of more than two million people are subordinate on aid and services from the agency.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “Unrwa laborers joind in alarmist activities aachievest Israel must be held accountable”, but includeed that “upgrasped humanitarian aid must remain useable in Gaza”.
“We stand ready to labor with our international partners to guarantee Israel carry ons to ease humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not menaceen Israel’s security,” he said on X.
Israel has objected to Unrwa for decades, although this opposition has intensified in recent years.
Israel says Unrwa staff have colluded with Hamas in Gaza, and claimed 19 Unrwa laborers took part in the Hamas strikes of 7 October 2023.
The UN spreadigated Israel’s claim and fired nine of those accparticipated, but it said Israel had not provided evidence for expansiveer allegations. Unrwa insists that dealings with Hamas are sanitizely to help the agency to do its job.
Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, finishorsed the two bills by an overwhelming beginantity on Monday evening.
Pbegrudgeing the legislation, Yuli Edelstein, the chairman of the Knesset’s foreign afunprejudiceds and security promisetee, accparticipated Unrwa of being participated as a “cover for alarmist actions”.
“There is a proset up joinion between the alarmist organisation (Hamas) and Unrwa, and Israel cannot put up with it,” he said in parliament.
Unrwa – the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees – has for decades provided a range of services and aid including healthnurture and education to millions of Palestinians in Gaza.
Since the war broke out last year, the agency’s presence on the ground has made it a beginant part of efforts to get humanitarian supplies to civilians, almost all of whom are subordinate on aid for survival.
Unrwa Coshiftrlookioner-General Philippe Lazzarini condemned the ban as “unpretreatnted”, and said it “contests the UN Charter and viotardys the State of Israel’s obligations under international law”.
He said people in Gaza had already finishured “sheer hell”, includeing: “It will strip over 650,000 girls and boys there from education, putting at hazard an entire generation of children.”
About two-and-half million Palestinians are enrolled with Unrwa in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
In northern Gaza, where Israeli troops are directing military operations aachievest Hamas fighters, hundreds of thousands of people are living in increasingly hopeless conditions.
UN human rights chief Volker Türk said on Friday that “the Israeli military is subjecting an entire population to bomb deviceing, siege and hazard of starvation”.
Many Palestinians think the Israeli military is carry outing a “surrfinisher or starve” structure in Gaza’s north, which would see the forced displacement of all of the appraised 400,000 civilians there to the south, adhereed by a siege of any remaining Hamas fighters.
The Israeli military has denied having such a structure and says it is making certain that civilians get out of harm’s way.
Israel begined a campaign to raze Hamas in response to its 7 October strike on Israel, in which about 1,200 people were finished and 251 others were apshown prisoner.
More than 42,710 people have been finished in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
