Israel has banned the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. That could be devastating for millions

By Nadeen Ebrahim and Salma Arafa, CNN

(CNN) — Israel’s parliament has voted to ban a United Nations agency that has provided essential services for Palestinian refugees for nearly eight decades, a move that could have devastating consequences for millions of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.

On Monday, the Knesset passed two bills; one barring the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) from activity within Israel, and another banning Israeli authorities from any contact with UNRWA – revoking the 1967 treaty that allows the agency to provide services to Palestinian refugees in areas under Israel’s control.

The move is expected to severely restrict the UNRWA from operating in territories Israel occupies, including Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

According to the published law, all contact between Israeli officials and the UN agency will end in three months from Monday. The 1967 treaty will expire within seven days of the bill’s passing, as Israel’s foreign minister makes the UN aware of its intention to terminate the treaty, the law says.

Following the passing of the first law, Boaz Bismuth, a member of the Likud party, the architect of the bill, said: “Anyone that behaves like a terrorist has no rights in Israel…. UNRWA equals Hamas, period.”

The move went ahead despite heated opposition from Arab members of the Knesset and strong international pressure from Western nations. The first law was approved with 92 votes in favor, 10 against. The second was approved with 87 votes in favor, 9 against.

The vote was swiftly criticized by UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, who said it violated international law and was “the latest in the ongoing campaign to discredit UNRWA and delegitimize its role toward providing human-development assistance and services to Palestine refugees.”

Several countries, including the United States, have expressed deep concerns about the ban. Prior to the vote, the US State Department had urged Israel not to pass the legislation, saying the agency plays “an irreplaceable role right now in Gaza.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken has previously warned Israel that passing the legislation could “have implications under US law and US policy.”

Despite those widely expressed concerns, during the passing of the laws, Knesset member Yuli Edelstein said the move would “not in any way harm humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip” and insisted Israel was acting within the framework of international law.

Israel has long sought to dismantle the UN body, arguing that some of its employees are affiliated with Hamas, and that its schools teach hate against Israel. UNRWA has repeatedly denied these accusations, saying there is “absolutely no ground for a blanket description of ‘the institution as a whole’ being ‘totally infiltrated.’”

Here’s what we know about UNRWA, and the implications of the Israeli ban.

What is UNRWA and what does it do?

UNRWA was founded by the United Nations a year after the 1948 creation of Israel that led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in an event known by Palestinians as the “Nakba” (catastrophe).

The agency, which began by assisting about 750,000 Palestinian refugees in 1950, now serves some 5.9 million across the Middle East, many of whom live in refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria.

In the Gaza Strip, which has been ravaged by a devastating Israeli war for more than a year, UNRWA serves some 1.7 million Palestinian refugees. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, it assists around 871,500 refugees.

The agency provides a wide range of aid and services to Palestinian refugees and their descendants, including shelter, healthcare, food and education. It is also a major source of employment for the refugees, who make up most of its more than 30,000 employees across the Middle East, and has representative offices in New York, Geneva and Brussels.

More than 13,000 of its employees are stationed in Gaza alone. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, it employs nearly 4,000 workers.

UNRWA is unique in that it is the only UN agency dedicated to a specific group of refugees in specific areas. While its purpose is to support Palestinian refugees, UNRWA does not have a mandate to resettle them

The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) is the body that is tasked with resettlement of refugees, but its mandate does not extend to areas UNRWA operates in.

Why does Israel want to ban UNRWA?

Israel has long opposed the agency and sought to dismantle it even before October 7 last year, when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 250 hostages. Israeli officials have rejected UNRWA’s definition of which Palestinians are eligible for refugee status, arguing that descendants of the 1948 refugees do not qualify and thus don’t have the right to return to their ancestral homes in what is now Israel.

An Israeli member of parliament behind the bills accused UNRWA on Sunday of “educating kids to hate Israel and spreading antisemitism.”

“UNRWA… is selling them (Palestinians) stories that they will be able to come back to Israel. This will not happen,” Yulia Malinovsky, a lawmaker for the Israel Beitenu party told CNN Sunday.

But since the war started, Israel has launched an intense campaign to delegitimize the UN body, including accusing some of UNRWA’s employees of association with Hamas’ attack, alleging they took part in varying capacities.

UNRWA strongly denied the allegations, but several governments, including the US, suspended funding for the agency earlier this year while the allegations were being investigated. In January, the agency terminated the contracts of those Israel named and launched an investigation into its claims. Most nations have since restored funding with the exception of the US, its biggest donor.

UNRWA said that that as of October 20 of this year, 233 of its workers were killed. And last month, the agency said that an UNRWA staffer “was shot and killed on the roof of his home by a sniper during an overnight Israeli military operation” in El Far’a Camp in the occupied West Bank, marking the first time a member of the UN agency was killed in the West Bank in more than 10 years, UNRWA said.

What would the impact of UNRWA’s banning be?

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said earlier this month that “in midst of all the upheaval, UNRWA – more than ever – is indispensable… is irreplaceable.”

The UN chief said he sent a letter to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, telling him that the proposed bill would “suffocate efforts to ease human suffering and tensions in Gaza, and indeed, the entire Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

“It would be a catastrophe,” Guterres said, “in what is already an unmitigated disaster.”

But his calls appear to have fallen on deaf ears. The UN chief has been declared persona-non-grata, or an unwanted person, by Israel, whose officials have repeatedly accused Guterres of being sympathetic to Israel’s adversaries.

UNRWA is the primary humanitarian aid group in Gaza. Nearly 2 million Gazans rely on the agency for aid, with 1 million people using UNRWA shelters for food and healthcare in the enclave. The agency has provided Gazans with everything from food and healthcare to education and psychological support for decades.

Along with the Palestinian Red Crescent, UNRWA handles almost all distribution of UN aid coming into the territory. The agency has 11 food distribution centers for 1 million people in Gaza, more than half of whom UNRWA assesses to live below the abject poverty line of US$ 1.74 per person per day.

The agency has also helped implement an emergency polio vaccination campaign in Gaza, alongside other UN bodies, in a bid to stop the infectious virus that can cause paralysis from spreading. Last week, the third phase of the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza was postponed due to escalating violence in north Gaza, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

In the West Bank, UNRWA provides services for 19 refugee camps, more than 90 schools and a number of health services, including prenatal care. It distributes basic food supplies, loans, as well as emergency cash grants and shelter, according to the agency’s website.

It is unclear who would assume assistance for the millions of Palestinian refugees who rely on UNRWA, if it wasn’t able to. Israel has previously tried to dismantle the agency and called for the merging of its responsibilities with the UNHCR.

The US State Department told CNN that the ban would make it impossible for UNRWA to operate and would leave a “vacuum that Israel would then be responsible for filling.”

Aida Touma-Suleiman, an Israeli-Arab politician and member of the Arab-majority Hadash party, said the “bills stem from a long time ambition of the Israeli right – to strip Palestinian refugees from their status.”

“Israel is in effect creating new refugees every day while questioning the legitimacy of that very status,” Touma-Suleiman said on X.

What is the international community saying?

On Monday, foreign ministers of seven countries – Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom – called on Israel to halt the legislation, expressing “grave concern” over its implications.

“UNRWA provides essential and life-saving humanitarian aid and basic services to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and throughout the region,” the foreign ministers said in a joint statement.

Despite its suspension of funding to UNRWA, the US has also opposed the ban. In a letter sent to two senior members of the Israeli government earlier this month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the Biden administration was “deeply concerned” about it.

Ireland, Norway, Slovenia and Spain also condemned the ban, saying it “sets a very serious precedent for the work of the United Nations and for all the organizations of the multilateral system,” according to a joint statement from the four nations shared online by Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin.

Germany’s human rights commissioner Luise Amstberg warned that these laws if “implemented by the Israeli government in this form” would “effectively make UNRWA’s work in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem impossible.” This would be “a fatal step,” Amstberg said.

The United Kingdom said Israel had an obligation under international law to ensure that “sufficient aid reaches civilians in Gaza,” with British Foreign Minister David Lammy saying UNRWA was the only agency that “can deliver humanitarian aid at the scale and pace needed.”

UNRWA chief Lazzarini has appealed to UN member states to step in, warning that the ban would have dire repercussions for the entire Middle East. Israel’s move means UNRWA’s mission to provide health care, education, and food to millions of Palestinian refugees “may become impossible without decisive intervention by the General Assembly,” Lazzarini said in a letter Tuesday to the UN General Assembly president.

The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), joined a growing list of humanitarian organizations that have condemned the ban. “This decision is the culmination of a long-running campaign against the organization, with consequences that will impact generations to come,” said MSF Secretary General Christopher Lockyear.

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CNN’s Irene Nasser, Dana Karni, Tim Lister, Kara Fox, Vasco Cotovio, Abeer Salman, Mike Schwartz, Irene Nasser, Zeena Saifi and Mohammad Al-Sawalhi in Gaza contributed to this report.