Israeli regime’s decision to cut off cooperation with UNRWA.
According to Al Jazeera, the Israeli Foreign Ministry announced on Monday that it had officially notified the United Nations that it had terminated the agreement signed with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), an agreement that allowed the agency to provide support and work in Palestine.
In a statement, Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz accused UNRWA of having its employees participate in the attack that the Palestinian resistance carried out on Israeli settlements on October 7, 2023.
The agreement between the Israeli regime and UNRWA dates back to 1967 and allowed the agency to operate in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem, providing various services such as education, health care and relief aid to Palestinians.
Collapse of humanitarian operations
The Israeli decision will take effect within three months, but UNRWA spokesman Jonathan Fowler said: “If implemented, it will likely lead to the collapse of the international humanitarian operation in the Gaza Strip, of which UNRWA is the backbone.”
Speaking to Al Jazeera, UNRWA media adviser Adnan Abu Hasna said: “We have not received any official notification in UNRWA of the cancellation of the agreement,” but that Israel is now implementing recent Knesset resolutions banning UNRWA from operating in areas under its jurisdiction.
Abu Hasna noted that as an occupying power, Israel controls land, crossings, banking systems, and purchasing operations, and this will have unprecedented catastrophic consequences for UNRWA’s work and Palestinian lives.
The danger of the Israeli regime’s decision is not limited to preventing vital aid from reaching millions of Palestinians but also extends to the collapse of the education and health systems that UNRWA provided to millions of Palestinians.
UNRWA’s media advisor stated that there is currently no alternative to these services in Palestine.
Cries for help
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also appealed for urgent support to save the lives of thousands of children in the Gaza Strip, especially after more than 14,000 children have died as a result of the ongoing Israeli attacks on the area.
“UNRWA is the largest international organization operating in Palestine and is the backbone of any humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip,” said Kazem Abu Khalaf, UNICEF spokesman in Palestine.
He stated that even other international organizations or their partners rely on UNRWA’s resources and capabilities, as the organization has been present in the region for decades and has 13,000 staff in the Gaza Strip alone.
Abu Khalaf told Al Jazeera: “UNRWA enrolled more than 300,000 students in its primary schools before the attacks on the Gaza Strip and provides routine health care through its numerous centers throughout the Gaza Strip.”
He continued that UNRWA is the only organization that provides comprehensive services to Palestinians, and as a result, the Israeli regime’s decision will mean life or death for the people of Gaza.
A UNICEF spokesman in Gaza added that all agencies operating in the region, whether affiliated with the United Nations or other agencies, will continue to provide vital services in Gaza, but the huge gap created by UNRWA’s withdrawal will be irreparable.
Generations of Displaced
The Islamic resistance movement Hamas said that the Israeli regime’s decision to cut ties with UNRWA is an attempt to eliminate the issue of Palestinian refugees and ignore all human values.
Hamas called on the international community and the United Nations to take the Zionist regime’s decision seriously, describing it as “a clear rebellion against international legitimacy.”
Ismail Thawbateh, director of the Palestinian government’s information office in the Gaza Strip, called the Zionist regime’s decision “a new crime among the occupiers’ crimes against the Palestinian people, especially the refugees who have been driven from their lands since 1948,” adding: “Now Israel is persecuting them again and killing their children, women, and infants, especially those who have sought refuge in refugee centers to avoid this new genocide.”
Thawbateh also emphasized that UNRWA’s activities were carried out based on an international political decision to protect the rights of the Palestinian people, but this decision by the Zionist regime shows that the regime’s stubbornness in violating Palestinian rights continues and that it is challenging international legitimacy and the United Nations by not cooperating with UNRWA.
He also condemned this “new crime” and called on the UN to expel the Zionist regime from all institutions affiliated with the organization, holding the US, which supports the regime, fully responsible for this new action.
It is worth noting that last week, the Knesset, with a majority of 92 votes out of 120 representatives, finally approved the ban on UNRWA’s activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, claiming that some UNRWA staff participated in the attacks of October 7, 2023.
UNRWA has denied these claims, and the UN has also stated that the agency is neutral and focuses only on supporting refugees.
It is worth noting that UNRWA was established in December 1949 by the UN General Assembly and has about 18,000 employees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, of which 13,000 work in the education sector and 1,500 in the health sector, supporting refugees inside Palestine and neighboring countries.