The people of the war-torn Gaza Strip are already suffering a severe humanitarian crisis, and now fear that Israel’s ban on the largest United Nations agency operating there will make things even more difficult. There is.
“Unrwa means everything to us. It is our life, food, drink and medical care. When it closes, there will be no more flour. If my son gets sick, where will he go?” Yasmin El. Ashley asks in Khan Yunis.
“The banning of Unruwa is another war for the Palestinian people,” said Saeed Aweeda, a registered refugee.
“They want to exterminate the Palestinian people and are not going to provide us with humanitarian services.”
Despite international opposition, there was broad support in Israel’s parliament for a new bill that would prevent Israeli authorities from contacting Unrwa, the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees in the Near East.
The agency has been accused of colluding with Hamas.
“Terrorist organizations have completely taken over,” said the bill’s co-sponsor, Sharen Haskell of the opposition United Party.
“If the United Nations is not willing to cleanse this organization of terrorist and Hamas activists, we must take steps to ensure they never again harm our people.”
Unrwa asserts its neutrality.
The newspaper said that if Israel’s new anti-Israel law goes into effect within three months as planned, it will have a particularly big impact on the occupied Palestinian territories.
“It would essentially make it impossible for us to operate in Gaza,” said Sam Rose, Unruwa’s deputy director for Gaza.
“We won’t be able to bring in supplies because that would have to be done in coordination with the Israeli authorities. This would mean we wouldn’t be able to control safe movement into and out of Gaza around the checkpoints, but Just in and around the conflict area is enough.”
He points out that the protected status of schools, clinics and other buildings in Unruwa, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people have taken refuge, will effectively be lost.
Israeli media have suggested there have been warnings from diplomats and security officials about the consequences of taking action against Anruwa.
Israel is accused of violating its obligations under the United Nations Charter and international humanitarian law.
However, domestic politics ultimately outweighed these considerations.
Unrwa was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1949 in the wake of the First Arab-Israeli War after the founding of Israel.
It has helped approximately 700,000 Palestinians who were displaced or forced from their homes.
Seventy years later, descendants of the original refugees have been registered and the number of Palestinians supported by Unruwa has grown to 6 million across Gaza, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
It helps them with aid, assistance, education and health services.
The organization has long been a lightning rod for criticism of Israel, for example over claims that textbooks used in schools promote hatred of Israel.
However, this has increased dramatically since the Hamas attack on October 7 last year.
Last week, Unruwa confirmed that the Hamas commander killed in the Israeli attack was an employee from 2022.
He was apparently filmed directing the killings and kidnappings of Israelis from an air raid shelter near Kibbutz Rem.
The United Nations launched an investigation after Israel accused 12 Unruwa officials of participating in a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. Seven more cases were subsequently discovered.
In August, Unrwa announced that nine of the thousands of staff it employs in Gaza had been fired for their possible involvement in the attack.
“We have taken immediate, strong and direct action on every allegation we have received,” Rose asserts.
Israel has long complained that Unruwa’s presence perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem, a core issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
UN officials counter that this can only be resolved as part of a negotiated political settlement.
But in Gaza, where most of the 2.3 million people are registered refugees, the new action against Unruwa is also seen as an alarming attack on their status.
“What I’m saying is that the word ‘refugee’ is going away. They don’t want the word refugee. Israel wants this,” Mohamed Salman of Deir al-Balah told the BBC.
