Israel gives UNRWA six days to halt operations in east Jerusalem

JERUSALEM – Israel told the United Nations on Jan 24 that its relief agency known as UNRWA, a critical lifeline to two million Palestinians during the 15 months of war in the Gaza Strip, had six days to stop all operations in east Jerusalem.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Mr Danny Danon, said in a letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres: “UNRWA is required to cease its operations in Jerusalem and evacuate all premises in which it operates in the city, no later than Jan 30, 2025.”

The letter was Israel’s first official notice to the UN about how it planned to enforce legislation passed by the Israeli Parliament in October banning UNRWA, known formally as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, from operating in Israeli territory. The measure also prohibited Israeli officials from engaging with officials and employees of UNRWA.

The move came after months of tensions between the Israeli government and the UN agency, which provides food, shelter, healthcare, vocational training and education to Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza, especially in the aftermath of the Hamas-led Oct 7, 2023, attacks on Israel that set off the war.

The agency also aids Palestinians who live in neighbouring countries like Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, where Palestinians displaced in the founding of Israel have lived for decades.

Israel has accused UNRWA of being infiltrated by members of Hamas but two UN investigations found that fewer than 10 employees out of nearly 13,000 were affiliated with the armed Palestinian group, and they were fired.

Two hundred and sixty-nine of UNRWA’s staff members have been killed in Gaza – the largest loss of life among UN employees in any conflict, officials say.

Mr Danon said in the letter that Israel would continue to cooperate with the UN and “any of its agencies that have not been infiltrated by terror organisations”.

Asked for comment, Mr Farhan Haq, a UN spokesperson, referred to previous statements by Mr Guterres fiercely defending the work of UNRWA as irreplaceable and essential, particularly in Gaza, where Israeli bombardment to root out Hamas has displaced most of the population and killed about 47,000 people, according to officials in Gaza, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

A spokesperson for UNRWA also referred requests for comments to Mr Guterres’ office, since the letter was addressed to him.

Mr Guterres told a meeting of the UN Security Council earlier this week on the situation in Gaza: “First, United Nations entities – including the backbone of our humanitarian response, UNRWA – must be able to perform their functions without hindrance.”

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini also asked the council last week to intervene to stop Israel from enforcing the legislation outlawing his agency.

He said such actions “will massively weaken the international humanitarian response” in Gaza and “immeasurably worsen already catastrophic living conditions”.

Before the letter was sent, Ms Lazzarini told reporters on Jan 17 that his agency had received no clear directive from Israel on how the measures would be carried out.

He also said that he expected UNRWA to continue its work, albeit with enormous logistical challenges in the West Bank and Gaza, and that its work in Jerusalem would be compromised.

In the letter, Israel demanded that UNRWA evacuate two sites in the Maalot Dafna and Kfar Aqueb neighbourhoods in east Jerusalem, which is considered by international law to be part of the West Bank and under occupation. Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be part of Israel.

UNRWA was established in 1949 to assist Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

The agency has widespread support among UN member states, and they have urged Israel not to ban the agency’s work. After Israel accused Hamas of infiltrating the agency, the Biden administration suspended millions in annual funding to UNRWA, and Congress in March prohibited US funding to the organization for a year.

During his first presidential term, Mr Donald Trump withdrew funding for UNRWA in 2018, and he is expected to continue restricting funding.

Mr Trump’s pick to be US ambassador to the UN, Representative Elise Stefanik, criticised the relief agency as “antisemitic” in her Senate confirmation hearing this week, and said she supported Israel’s “biblical rights” over the West Bank.

That position is at odds with the UN’s stance that the West Bank is occupied Palestinian territory.

Mr Lazzarini said in a post on social platform X on Jan 24 that preventing UNRWA from operating “might sabotage” the provisional ceasefire recently struck between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, “failing once again hopes of people who have gone through unspeakable suffering”.

He said that, in the first three days of the truce, UNRWA brought in food for 1 million people in Gaza and had already distributed it to about 3,000 people in northern Gaza, where the UN and aid agencies have warned that people were at the brink of famine.

“The work of UNRWA must continue in Gaza + across the occupied Palestinian territory,” Mr Lazzarini wrote. NYTIMES