Israel passed two laws on Monday that effectively ban the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East from operating in the Jewish state.
The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, voted overwhelmingly (92–10) to curtail the U.N. agency’s operations within its territory. It later voted (87–9) on a second bill to ban state authorities from having any contact with the agency.
Although UNRWA’s mission ostensibly exists to serve Palestinian refugees in a humanitarian capacity, Israel has long accused it of fostering ties with terrorist organizations.
U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller implored Israel not to pass any legislation that would disrupt UNRWA’s activities in the Gaza Strip, citing its valuable humanitarian efforts. “There’s nobody that can replace them right now in the middle of the crisis,” he said.
“If UNRWA goes away, you will see civilians — including children, including babies — not be able to get access to food and water and medicine that they need to live. We find that unacceptable,” Miller said.
He urged the Israeli government “to pause the implementation of this legislation” and abandon it entirely while asserting that the Biden administration now believes UNRWA funding should be restored.
U.S. funding to the agency had been severed after the discovery that multiple members participated in the October 7 massacre last year. Israel maintains that upwards of 10 percent of the UNRWA staff in Gaza has ties to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad — both U.S.-designated terror organizations.
UNRWA staffers, tasked with educating large numbers of Palestinian schoolchildren, have posted messages on social media that encouraged violence against Israelis in 2015, and the head of the agency’s union was fired in 2017 after he was revealed to have been a senior Hamas official.
In February, House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer wrote a letter to U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken demanding to know why the administration decided to restore UNRWA funding.
“In addition to participating in the terrorist attacks, the dossier reveals that UNRWA employees held hostages captive, agency vehicles were used to ferry terrorists across Israel’s border, weapons for Hamas have been stored in agency buildings, Hamas tunnels run under UNRWA facilities, and UNRWA staff tried to conceal Hamas’ theft of fuel, medicine, and humanitarian aid,” he wrote, citing Israeli intelligence.
The two bills effectively disable UNRWA throughout the Palestinian territories, as Israel is set to no longer issue entrance permits to those areas or coordinate any further activities with the agency.
U.N. secretary-general Antonio Guterres, already declared persona non grata by the Jewish state, has described the bills as a “catastrophe,” while European Commission vice president Josep Borrell cautioned that they “would have disastrous consequences.”
“In the 90 days before this legislation goes into effect — and after — we stand ready to work with our international partners to ensure that Israel continues to facilitate humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza in a manner that does not threaten Israel’s security,” a statement from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office read.
Earlier this month, Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent a letter to their Israeli counterparts threatening to slash American weapon deliveries if the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip was not improved within 30 days.