Parallel UNRWA: Collective Punishment of the Palestinians by the Knesset

Photo source: RomanDeckert – CC BY-SA 4.0

The man has a cheek. After lecturing the Iranians and Lebanese about what (and who) is good for them in terms of rulers and government (we already know what he thinks of the Palestinians), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is constantly engaged in further denying access and aid to those in Gaza and the West Bank. This is provided for in a bill that would prevent the United Nations Middle East Agency for Relief and Works for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) from carrying out its important functions in the occupied Palestinian territory.

The Israeli state’s campaign against UNRWA was ruthless and pathological. Even before last year’s attacks by Hamas on October 7, there was much talk that the body seemed intent on keeping the horrors of the 1948 displacements current. The victim, the amnesiac Israeli state security forces complained, was encouraged by treating the descendants of displaced Palestinians as refugees. Unpleasant memories persisted.

Since then, Israel has continued to slander and denigrate the organization as a terrorist front that is best eliminated. (The labels are effortlessly interchanged – “Hamas supporter”; “activist”; “terrorist.”) First came the infamous dossier, which pointed the finger at 12 people believed to have been involved with Hamas in the October 7 attacks. The UN quickly launched an internal investigation. Some individuals were released on suspicion of involvement in the attacks. Unfortunately, donor funding from sixteen countries amounting to about US$450 million has been suspended.

UNRWA Commissioner General Philip Lazzarini has always made an effort to explain that he was “never informed” and given no evidence to support Israel’s accusations. It was also all the more interesting given that the agency’s staffing lists had been provided to both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities in advance. At no time did he ever “get the slightest bit concerned about the staff we hired.”

Lazzarini in April told The UN Security Council said that “an insidious campaign to end UNRWA operations is under way, with serious consequences for peace and security.” The agency was repeatedly denied aid delivery to northern Gaza, staff were barred from coordinating meetings between humanitarian organizations and Israel, and UNRWA facilities and personnel were attacked.

Israel’s campaign to persuade donor countries to resume funding proved mixed. Even the United Kingdom, long sympathetic to Israel’s accusations, announced in July, funding will be restored. According to UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, UNRWA has taken steps to ensure compliance with the “highest standards of neutrality”.

In August review conclusions The accusations of former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonnade, made at the request of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, have been made public. It affirmed the role of UNRWA as “indispensable and irreplaceable” in the absence of a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians, the “key” body providing “life-saving humanitarian assistance and basic social services, including health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank of the Jordan River.

Identifying eight areas requiring immediate improvement regarding neutrality (such as donor engagement, staff neutrality, installations, education, and staff unions), it noted that “Israel has yet to provide corroborating evidence” that agency personnel were “Members of terrorist organizations.” .

October 24 UNRWA confirmed that one of its employees killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza, Muhammad Abu Attawi, had been with the agency since July 2022, when he served as a Nuhba commander in Hamas’ Bureij Battalion. Attavi is believed to have been involved in the killing and kidnapping of Israelis from a roadside bomb shelter near Kibbutz Reim last October. His name appeared in a July letter from Israel to the agency, which listed 100 names allegedly linked to terrorist groups. But no action was taken against Attavi because the Israelis did not provide UNRWA with evidence. Lazzarini’s letter with an appeal, c words Juliet Tuma, the agency’s director of communications, to “cooperate … by providing more information so he can take action,” received “no response.”

Having failed on multiple fronts in their quest to end the viable existence of UNRWA, Israeli lawmakers are now choosing the legislative route to enshrine the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. Two bills are on the train in the Knesset. first, sponsored such figures as Yuliya Malinovskyi, a member of parliament from “Israel Beitenu” and legislator from “Likud” Dan Illuz, will prohibit state authorities from contacting UNRWA. The second, sponsored by Likud MK Boaz Bismuth, would critically impede the agency’s activities on Israeli soil by revoking the 1967 exchange of notes justifying such activities.

Even self-proclaimed moderates – a relative term – such as former Defense Secretary Benny Gantz support the measures, accusation body of the United Nations to make itself “an integral part of the Hamas mechanism – and now is the time to completely disassociate from it.” This did not improve the fate of the refugees, but only perpetuated “their victimization”. For Gantz, it is clear that Israel did not play a central role in creating Palestinian victims.

If cooperation between any Israeli authorities and UNRWA ceases, work in Gaza and the West Bank will become virtually impossible, mainly because Jerusalem will no longer issue permits to enter these areas or allow any coordination with the Israel Defense Forces.

UN Secretary General Guterres was stunned on two bills. “This would effectively end the coordination of the protection of UN convoys, offices and shelters that serve hundreds of thousands of people.” Ambassadors from 123 UN member states echoed the same sentiment, while the Biden administration, powerless, forewarned that the proposed “restrictions will destroy humanitarian aid in Gaza at this critical time” and deprive Palestinians of educational and social services in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

In their 23 October statementNorthern European countries also expressed concern that UNRWA’s mandate to “carry out (…) direct programs of assistance and work” for millions of Palestinian refugees, as defined by UN General Assembly resolution 302 (IV), would be revoked. “In the midst of the ongoing catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, the suspension of any of the organization’s activities would have devastating consequences for the hundreds of thousands of civilians served by UNRWA.”

Further, a warning is given in the statement. The destruction of the refugee agency would create a vacuum that “could destabilize the situation in (Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem), Israel and the region as a whole, and could seriously jeopardize the prospects for a two-state solution.”

This is a concern that hardly matters before justifying the murderous collective punishment used against people who are perceived more as dumb serfs and submissive animals than as sovereign beings with rights and protections. Israel’s efforts to defame and mutilate UNRWA remain an important part of this agenda. In this organization there is a storehouse of deep and disturbing memories that the forces of oppression seek to erase.