Global powers must not let Israel trample over the UN. If international law is to matter, we have to hold all parties accountable
October 30, 2024 2:23 pm(Updated 2:28 pm)
The decision of the Israeli Knesset to ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) punishes two targets; the UN agency that caters for the needs of six million Palestine refugees and the Palestinians who depend on its services.
The immediate implications include making it impossible for Unrwa to operate in Israel and the territories Israel occupies illegally – Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Israel controls all the borders, the entry and exit of both goods and personnel. Unrwa’s staff would not be able to obtain visas. The agency will not be able to import goods. It could not drive vehicles through checkpoints. Israeli banks will not be able to do business with the agency.
Closing the Unrwa headquarters in Jerusalem will also deal a blow to the Palestinian stake in the contested city. Israeli leaders have long campaigned against any Palestinian ties to it, having closed down Palestinian national institutions in Jerusalem years ago.
The biggest effect will be on the beneficiaries. The ban will collapse the international humanitarian effort to assist those in Gaza. Palestinian refugees have survived using Unrwa services for decades, not least during 57 years of military occupation and, in the case of Gaza, 17 years of blockade. Hundreds of thousands of children will have no schools having already lost one year to this conflict.
This comes at a time when Palestinians in Gaza need Unrwa services more than ever. It is the only humanitarian agency able to deliver aid at scale inside the Strip. Over 133,000 people are categorised as being in famine conditions, with many thousands on the brink. Israel has systematically destroyed the healthcare system, all universities and many schools. It is almost impossible for Unrwa to operate as it is, and 231 of its staff have been killed since last October when Hamas attacked Israel, sparking the war.
This matters most in northern Gaza. Only last week, the UN warned that the “entire population of north Gaza is at risk of dying”. This is not death by natural disaster but by an Israeli policy of using starvation as a weapon of war, a claim also made by aid and human rights groups as well as the EU’s foreign policy chief. This alleged policy led the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to seek arrest warrants against both the Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu, and Israel’s Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant.
Israel is rendering Gaza uninhabitable, a threat many Israeli ministers have made. As Oxfam stated: “Israel is systematically dismantling Gaza as a land that is autonomous and livable for Palestinians.”
Denying aid and smashing the main humanitarian agency operating in Gaza will harden the accusation that Israel is committing genocide. The ICJ is hearing an ongoing case into whether Israel is guilty of genocide, and has already found a “real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice” could be done to Palestinians’ rights to protection under the Genocide Convention. Israeli ministers have made a host of genocidal comments and continue to do so.
The decision will also impact Unrwa operations in Lebanon, where it shelters thousands of refugees who will all be at risk without deconfliction mechanisms.
The new law is just the latest Israeli assault on Unrwa. Back in January, Israel accused employees of participating in the 7 October Hamas atrocities, and said hundreds were members of militant groups. Major donors immediately suspended aid.
The agency has acknowledged some employees were involved with militant groups, and sacked nine staff members alleged to have participated in the 7 October attacks. But an independent investigation found the agency, which has a workforce of 30,000, had adhered to neutrality principles, and taken disciplinary action in rare cases of breaches.
Except for the US, all donors including the UK resumed funding to Unrwa. It should have been the other way round, that Unrwa funding continued until Israel provided evidence. Unrwa was treated as guilty until proven innocent.
But much damage was done. The Israeli campaign has been relentless and often ridiculous. The Israeli army showed a video of Unrwa boxes containing weapons, as if this was evidence of the agency’s complicity.
Israeli antipathy towards Unrwa goes back decades. Its leaders object to the very concept of Palestinian refugees. It is a reminder that Israel has built cities and towns on the rubble of hundreds of destroyed Palestinian villages, that it has refused to honour the right of 70 per cent of Palestinians to return to their land. This is the catastrophe Palestinians call the “nakba”.
Israel’s leaders refuse to accept Palestinian refugee rights. They want descendants of those who fled or were forced out of Palestine to lose their refugee status. One of the lies spread is that Unrwa uniquely passes on refugee status to descendants, thereby perpetuating the refugee problem. The main UN refugee body, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees debunked this smear and has made clear that like Unrwa, it also passes on refugee status to children of refugees until their situation is resolved.
For a state brought into being by the UN, Israel is a most ungrateful offspring. It violates international law at will including UN Security Council Resolutions. Its Prime Minister referred to the UN as “a swamp of antisemitic bile”. It refuses even to allow the Secretary-General to visit. It is now openly trying to kill off one of its oldest and largest agencies.
Major international powers must not let Israel trample over the UN and international law. Today it is Unrwa, who and what is next? Other UN agencies have had their operations thwarted. Israel has intimated and threatened officials at the International Criminal Court.
Israel should be treated as the rogue actor it is. This requires more than limp press releases expressing concern that Israeli leaders laugh at. If we want a rules-based international order, if international law is to matter, we have to hold all parties accountable. Sanctions are the only way forward. It is time for Israel to pay a cost for its violations.
Chris Doyle is the Director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, a non-governmental organisation focused on British Middle East policy