The head of the United Nations agency that assists Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, warned Friday that the expected implementation later this month of Israeli legislation aimed at shuttering the agency would be “catastrophic” to humanitarian efforts in Gaza.
“A chaotic dismantling of UNRWA will irreversibly harm the lives and future of the Palestinians,” said Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini. “I believe it will obliterate their trust in the international community and any solution it attempts to facilitate.”
On Oct. 28, Israel’s parliament adopted legislation to ban the agency in Israel and forbid Israeli officials from having any contact with UNRWA representatives. Israel says some UNRWA staff participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack inside Israel. The United Nations investigated the accusations and fired nine staffers.
Israel’s U.N. envoy, Danny Danon, has said that “UNRWA Gaza has become a front for Hamas.”
Lazzarini told reporters that full implementation of the legislation could potentially cripple UNRWA’s ability to reach millions of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. He said they are still waiting for Israel to issue some guidance on how the two laws will be implemented, but nothing has come down so far, and they plan to stay and deliver, opening their schools and clinics as normal.
Israel has suggested that other U.N. and international aid agencies take over UNRWA’s work. But Lazzarini said UNRWA’s services, mainly health care and education, can be transferred only to a functioning state — ideally a Palestinian one.
“A ceasefire in Gaza must be followed by a political transition that includes an orderly conclusion of UNRWA’s mandate and the handover of its public-like services to empowered Palestinian institutions,” he said.
U.N. officials have repeatedly stressed that if the Knesset legislation is enforced and UNRWA dismantled, then Israel, as the occupying power, would have the legal responsibility for providing essential services to the Palestinian population.
Lazzarini was in New York to brief U.N. Security Council members on the situation. He said he asked them to prevent implementation of the Israeli legislation, insist on a political path forward that clearly delineates UNRWA’s role as a provider of essential services, and ensure the agency’s financial crisis does not end its work.
UNRWA has long had funding shortfalls. However, the commissioner-general says those shortfalls have been exacerbated by what he calls a politically driven disinformation campaign by Israel to drive donors away from UNRWA, as well as the growing needs in Gaza over the last 15 months.
With a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal struck this week that includes a provision for 600 aid trucks a day to enter the enclave, diplomats say UNRWA’s infrastructure and expertise are even more necessary.
“UNRWA remains absolutely indispensable in Gaza, in the West Bank, everywhere,” French Ambassador Nicolas de Riviere told reporters Friday.
“It would be quite a contradiction to close UNRWA while implementing the ceasefire agreement,” he added. “Because on the one hand, you will try to improve the situation in Gaza — to improve the humanitarian situation — and on the other hand, since there is no credible Plan B for UNRWA, Gazans would just suffer, and the situation will further deteriorate.”
The U.N. General Assembly created UNRWA in 1949 to assist Palestinian refugees who lost their homes and livelihoods because of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that led to the creation of the State of Israel.
