What is behind Israel’s ongoing campaign to dismantle UNRWA?

On October 6, 2024, the Israeli parliament advanced two billswith the support of 100 members of parliament, to stop the activities of the UN Agency to help Palestinian refugees and organize work in the Middle East (UNRWA) in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT).

The first bill aims to ban UNRWA from activities on the territory of Israel. Israel considers East Jerusalem its sovereign territory, despite the fact that it occupied it in violation of international law in 1967 and then annexed it.

The second bill ends Israel’s participation in 1967 Comey-Michelmore agreementaccording to which Israel should facilitate the work of UNRWA in the OPT.

As legislation progresses, primary reports claimed that the Israel Lands Authority (ILA) is taking over the UNRWA headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem and converting the complex into an apartment complex consisting of 1,440 units.

According to UNRWA officials, ILA sent an evacuation order to the humanitarian agency in June this year, alleging that the UNRWA office was illegally occupying government land, but UNRWA has not received any other reports since then.

“UNRWA has never received any official notification of confiscation orders from the Israeli authorities,” said Juliette Tuma, UNRWA’s director of communications. New Arab.

However, the ILA has published its plan for the UNRWA complex on its website October 10, 2024which indicates that the project is already at the stage of preparation. The ILA did not respond TNA inquiries about their plans for the UNRWA site.

Israel claims that UNRWA’s headquarters are on state territory, but UNRWA denies the allegations, saying the site was leased to them by Jordan in 1952. The agency pays Jordan a nominal annual rent of 2,500 Jordanian dinars (approximately £2,700), which is deposited into an escrow account.

“Our lease agreement with Jordan has not been invalidated by the Israeli authorities since 1967,” said Jonathan Fowler, senior communications manager for UNRWA. TNA. “We have exclusive rights to the complex in Sheikh Jarrah, and we also have exclusive rights to the Qalandiya training center.”

The headquarters of UNRWA is located in the East Jerusalem area Sheikh Jarrah and also manages a vocational school in the East Jerusalem district of Kafr Aqab.

The campaign against UNRWA continued

Israel has been longing for this for a long time liquidate UNRWA operationsaccusing her of anti-Semitism and inciting terror in her schools. These efforts never materialized, but gained new momentum after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, when Israel is blamed 12 UNRWA personnel participated in the assault (without providing evidence of these claims).

UNRWA, for its part, launched two investigations into its agency, one of which found that nine employees were “possibly involved” in the attack, and later fired the suspected employees.

UNRWA’s actions did little to appease anti-UNRWA activists and politicians in Israel, who then seized on the narrative that the UN agency was a terrorist organization and used that rhetoric to push legislation to repeal UNRWA.

Anti-UNRWA sentiment has reached the highest levels of Israel’s political echelon, and many officials from across the political spectrum support the proposed bills. And the leader of the government opposition, and the head of the centrist party Yesh Atid Yair Lapid, and the head of the conservative party Yisrael Beitenu Avigdor Lieberman confirmed their support for banning UNRWA, despite growing demands from American and European diplomats to prevent this law from becoming law.

However, other government ministers expressed hesitation after this Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel warned that the adoption of the law would violate the UN charter and threaten Israel’s exclusion from the world organization.

“As a member state of the UN, Israel is obliged to support and respect the privileges and immunities of all UN bodies. These include UNRWA…which cannot be eliminated by the actions of any one or group of countries, but requires a collective decision by the UN General Assembly itself,” said Susan Akram, professor of law and director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Boston University. New Arab.

Akram also noted that Israel is a party to the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, which guarantees that “property and assets of the United Nations, wherever they are and whoever they are, enjoy immunity from any form of legal process.” and “the premises of the UN are inviolable.”

“It prohibits member states from searching, confiscating, expropriating or otherwise interfering with UN property and assets,” Akram explained.

The creation of UNRWA in December 1949 was based on UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which established the right of return of Palestinian refugees after their expulsion by Zionist and Israeli forces in 1947-1948, when the State of Israel was established. According to analysts, this is the driving force behind Israel’s long campaign to eliminate UNRWA.

“Israel’s attempts to dismantle UNRWA can and should only be understood as part of its wider war to uproot the Palestinians,” said Shatha Abdulsamad, an analyst at the Palestinian political network Al-Shabab. TNA.

“By disbanding UNRWA, Israel seeks to eliminate the Palestinian refugee issue and end the Palestinian right of return once and for all.”

But even if UNRWA ceases to exist – as Israel hopes – this does not mean that Palestinian refugees and their calls to return will also disappear.

“Even if UNRWA closes, the Palestinian refugee problem will remain,” said Milena Ansari, Israel-Palestine researcher at Human Rights Watch. TNA.

“Israel claims that its attacks on UNRWA are about UNRWA’s neutrality, but this is not the case. It is about their humanitarian activities and protection of the status of Palestinian refugees.”

Because Israel continues to attack Gaza, and now Lebanon, where it lives the third most populous Palestinian refugees, the closure of UNRWA could inevitably lead to a humanitarian disaster.

“Refugee camps in the Middle East will remain, and there will be a bigger question about who will run these refugee camps and who will provide humanitarian aid,” Ansari said.

Jessica Buchsbaum is a Jerusalem-based journalist who covers events in Palestine and Israel. Her work has been featured in Middle East Eye, The National and Gulf News.

Follow her on Twitter: @jess_buxbaum