The ban on UNRWA imposes humanitarian challenges on its beneficiaries in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and is considered a political and legal transgression in light of the agency’s mandate, history and roles. It also highlights the issue of global governance and its ability to achieve an appropriate response in a highly tense world, especially at the levels of relief and humanitarian aid.
On October 28, 2024, the Israeli Knesset finally approved a law banning the activities of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the territories under its control, with the support of the majority of Knesset members (92 votes to 10), in addition to adopting a second resolution stipulating a ban on contact and dealings by Israeli officials with UNRWA and its employees by a vote (89 votes to 7). The two legislations are to enter into force within three months, and thus terminate the agreement signed between Israel and UNRWA since 1967 regarding the agency’s activities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and threaten the agency’s ability to provide its services to Palestinian refugees in accordance with the UN General Assembly resolution of 1949. This resolution comes as part of an Israeli campaign against UNRWA that has escalated since the beginning of the ongoing war, and may result in political, humanitarian and security repercussions that this paper seeks to address.
UNRWA and the Role of the Parallel State in the Palestinian Territories
UNRWA operates in five areas, including the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, and in the host countries of Palestine refugees in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. In total, it employs more than 30,000 staff, and the total number of registered refugees is approximately 6 million. In particular, UNRWA plays the role of a “parallel state” in the Palestinian territories, as its role towards refugees predates the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, and because of the services it provides to more than 1.5 million refugees in the Gaza Strip, and about 900,000 in the West Bank, distributed over more than nineteen camps in the West Bank, and eight camps in the Gaza Strip.
UNRWA is mainly active in providing health and education services and in the sectors of social security, relief, employment and infrastructure. At the level of health services, UNRWA provides its services through 65 health centers in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, representing 9% of health care centers in the Palestinian territories. At the level of educational services, the agency serves approximately 335,000 male and female students, registered in approximately 280 schools, in addition to providing higher education institutes that grant intermediate and bachelor’s degrees and vocational training. UNRWA also has a special social security program that benefits more than 135,000 refugees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and provides women’s services in more than 25 specialized centers, in addition to the financing loan program that has granted small loans to more than 250,000 refugees cumulatively. In addition to the agency’s role as a relief agency concerned with employment, it employs approximately 18,000 employees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including approximately 13,000 workers in the education sector and 1,500 in the health sector.
Thus, the Israeli decision threatens about 2.3 million Palestinian refugees who receive UNRWA services and assistance. Implementing the Israeli decision would deprive these groups of these basic services or at least obstruct a large percentage of them from receiving services, thus deteriorating the humanitarian situation and greatly increasing their humanitarian suffering, as a large number of Palestinians live under difficult economic conditions and depend on these services, especially in the Gaza Strip, which has been suffering from an unprecedented humanitarian crisis since October 7, 2023. UNRWA is the main UN agency that transports aid to the Strip, and about one million people from the Strip are displaced in its facilities and shelters.
The context and background of the Israeli escalation against UNRWA
The law banning UNRWA activities in Israel and East Jerusalem became a reality with the Knesset’s approval of its second and third readings, which stipulates that “UNRWA will not operate any representative office, will not provide any service, and will not carry out any activity, directly or indirectly, in Israel.” In another session, the Knesset also approved a second law that prohibits Israel, entities, and individuals holding public office from establishing relations with UNRWA, and cancels the agency’s tax breaks and diplomatic immunity. These decisions come after the Knesset approved those laws in the first reading on May 22, canceling the agency’s designation as a “terrorist” organization.
In fact, the UNRWA ban preceded a series of escalations in Israel’s relationship with the agency in the post-war stages of the Gaza Strip. An intelligence report submitted by the Israeli government in late January 2024 claimed that at least 12 UNRWA employees were involved in the October attacks, and that 10% of the agency’s 12,000 employees in the Gaza Strip had ties to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. This led to the United States and Western countries (including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Italy, France, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, New Zealand, Switzerland, Austria, Romania, Sweden, and Estonia) suspending their funding to the agency, before resuming that funding due to Israel’s failure to provide evidence for its allegations, with the exception of the United States, which froze its contribution until at least March 2025. These allegations were preceded by a report published by the Times of Israel and broadcast by Israel’s Channel 12 in December 2023, which revealed a plan by the Israeli Foreign Ministry to end UNRWA’s work in three stages. The first stipulates criminalizing UNRWA through comprehensive reports linking it to terrorism by accusing it of cooperating with Hamas. The second is related to reducing its services by searching for alternative international organizations. The third relates to transferring UNRWA’s tasks to the administration or body that will take over the sector after the end of the war. In February 2024, the Israeli Bank Leumi froze UNRWA’s account, on the pretext of suspicion of transferring funds to Hamas.
Moreover, the Israeli accusations extended to the agency’s facilities, as Israel claims that UNRWA facilitated Hamas’s digging of tunnels under its schools, and that it used those facilities to store weapons or as command and control rooms. UNRWA indicates that Israel targeted about 70% of its schools in the Gaza Strip from the beginning of the war until July 2024.
Israeli decision and position on international law
The Israeli decision sparked a wave of international and regional condemnations, from countries and UN organizations and institutions, as the Security Council had previously warned on October 10 and 30, 2024, against attempts to dismantle or reduce “UNRWA operations and undermine them”, as a measure of Israel’s compliance with its international obligations. In practice , the decisions terminate the agreement signed in 1967 between Israel and UNRWA, regarding the agency’s activities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and sever official relations between them, resulting in the cancellation of the privileges and immunity enjoyed by UNRWA employees within Israel, including exemption from prosecution and taxes. Israel officially notified the United Nations of its decision on November 4, 2024.
Legally , the decision is a violation of international law, as emphasized by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who called on Israel to “act in accordance with its obligations under the UN Charter and international law” and that “national legislation cannot alter these obligations.” On October 31, 2024, the Arab League adopted a resolution submitted by Jordan that considered the Israeli decisions “illegitimate” and a violation of the law and of Israel’s obligations as the occupying power in the occupied Palestinian territories. On October 29, Norway announced that it would submit a draft resolution to the UN General Assembly requesting the opinion of the International Court of Justice on the question: “Is Israel violating international law when it prevents the United Nations, international humanitarian organizations and States from providing humanitarian assistance to Palestinians under occupation?” In fact; The Israeli decision is considered controversial from a legal standpoint, as it is believed to violate the interim measures issued by the International Court of Justice in January 2024 and in March 2024 regarding Israel’s facilitation of the provision of basic humanitarian and relief aid to the Gaza Strip, as well as UN Security Council Resolution 2730 issued in May 2024, which obliges Israel to respect and protect UN institutions and their workers, and the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, of which UNRWA is one of its institutions, for the independence of its members and employees to carry out their assigned tasks, which was confirmed by the UN Secretary-General if the Israeli law was implemented.
Israel would have legal consequences if it tried to apply this law in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, as there is no legal Israeli sovereignty in the territories that the United Nations considers and that international law classifies as territories occupied by Israel. International law also obliges occupying powers to approve relief programs and facilitate access to them by all available means and capabilities. In fact, the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice on July 19, 2024 , indicated the illegality of the Israeli presence in the Palestinian territories and the need to end that presence as soon as possible.
The extent of the Israeli decision’s enforcement in the West Bank and Gaza
Israel can, de facto, influence the mechanisms of UNRWA’s work and activity in the Palestinian territories, through:
First: Issuing military orders similar to the military orders applied in the occupied Palestinian territories since 1967, which number more than 1,700 military orders, in accordance with Military Order No. 2 of 1967, which stipulated the cancellation of any laws in effect in the occupied territories if they conflict with the orders issued by the occupation administration.
Second : The Palestinian Authority does not enjoy the status of a sovereign state in the political aspect in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as its legal (theoretical) scope of control in the West Bank is limited according to the Oslo Accords. It exercises its civil and military authority in areas classified as (A), which constitute 11% of the area of the West Bank, while its authority is limited to the civil aspects in area classified as (B), with Israel’s legal and military sovereignty over them. As for areas classified as (C), which constitute about 61% of the area of the West Bank, Israel has full legal, civil and military sovereignty over them. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority does not exist in the Gaza Strip, and Israel rejected that presence the day after the war.
Third : The ratification of the law prohibiting Israeli institutions and officials from communicating and dealing with UNRWA representatives and employees and canceling the privileges of its employees means that Israel will not issue work permits and entry visas to its employees, and the Israeli army will stop coordinating with the agency, which means restricting the agency’s activities and stopping the entry of its aid to the Gaza Strip in particular, given its control over all the outlets and crossings of the Strip. As for the West Bank, stopping coordination between the Israeli government and UNRWA means negatively affecting the agency’s operational processes and undermining its ability to operate its offices in all areas of its operations as a result of its reliance on coordination with the Israeli government or authorities. This hinders the arrival of UNRWA’s needs to the Palestinian territories, which first arrive through Israeli ports before going to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Fourth : Restricting UNRWA’s work, as Israel is no longer obligated to facilitate its work, protect its headquarters, or guarantee the freedom of movement of its employees, and its staff no longer enjoys diplomatic immunity. In a preemptive move, the Israeli Army Radio announced on October 10, 2024, that there was an order to confiscate the land on which the UNRWA Operations Headquarters in the West Bank, located in East Jerusalem, is located, and to allocate it for the construction of settlement units.
UNRWA Ban and the Day After the War
Banning UNRWA not only creates a gap in its primary role of providing protection and care for Palestinian refugees registered with it in its various areas and locations, but also goes beyond that to go towards direct and indirect repercussions, and impose urgent and deferred arrangements.
On the one hand, restricting UNRWA’s role in the West Bank in particular may exacerbate the economic and social challenges imposed on the Palestinian Authority, based on its responsibility to fill the void created if UNRWA stops providing its services, especially the Department of Refugee Affairs in the Palestine Liberation Organization, which may reinforce the state of fragility of the Authority, especially with its inability to confront the challenges added to it by the war in the Gaza Strip, and the Israeli measures against it, especially its withholding of billions of dollars in clearance funds, at a time when it needs an additional budget to cover health and education services and the social umbrella that UNRWA occupies, or at least prepare for that possibility, and deal with thousands of agency employees whose jobs are threatened by the cessation of UNRWA’s work or fear of Israeli persecution or any other measures such as preventing them from traveling or entering Israel, considering that what applies to the agency affects its employees.
On the other hand, the UNRWA ban is linked to the Israeli vision for the day after the war in the Gaza Strip, as Israel seeks to control the distribution of aid in the Strip. The Israeli government has engaged in discussions with the Global Delivery Company (GDC) to deliver and distribute aid in the northern Gaza Strip . This was preceded by discussions with American security companies in May 2024 to manage the Rafah crossing . Israel aims to implement practical steps to achieve its vision for the day after the war, according to the “Document of the Day After Hamas Movement – Principles” approved by the Security Cabinet on February 22, which addresses the dissolution of UNRWA and the replacement of its service role with other agencies and entities. It also extends to its roles in the educational field, as Israel accuses its curricula of inciting extremism and hatred, while the document stipulates educational programs for all religious, educational and social institutions to prevent extremism.
The most dangerous thing is related to the long-term repercussions of the embargo and the indirect consequences, especially in the Israeli government’s tendencies to resolve the conflict instead of managing it, and it finds in this moment of war an opportunity to proceed with its plans in terms of:
First : What is practically related to the Israeli measures seeking to resolve the conflict and liquidate the Palestinian issue, as the ban on UNRWA completes the scene that Israel plans to draw, with a gradual transformation of the system of government and sovereignty in the West Bank, as is clear from the announcement by the Israeli Broadcasting Authority on November 11, 2024 that Netanyahu will propose imposing Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank immediately after Trump assumes the presidency, and the statement by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich about preparing for that. This was preceded by several escalatory measures by the Israeli government aimed at undermining the two-state solution and the establishment of a Palestinian state. The war period witnessed the largest land confiscations in the Jordan Valley since the Oslo Accords in 1991, as well as the transfer by the Israeli army of a number of its legal powers in the West Bank to the Civil Administration headed by the Minister of Finance. For the first time in May, a civilian was appointed to the position of Deputy Head of the Civil Administration. In June, the army granted the government the authority to demolish Palestinian homes. The outlines of the Israeli vision are also clear in the Knesset’s vote by a large majority to reject unilateral recognition of the Palestinian state on February 22, the vote on a draft resolution rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state on July 17, and its rejection of the unification of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip under the administration of the Palestinian Authority .
Secondly : The decision expresses an Israeli denial of the political and legal responsibility on which the agency was founded, in accordance with Resolution (302) resulting from International Resolution (194), which clearly states in paragraph (11) that “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors must be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation must be paid for the property of those who decide not to return to their homes and for all loss or damage.” There are serious concerns about the role of the UN agency in the Palestinian territories and its future role in the neighborhood, especially with Donald Trump winning a second presidential term, as he had previously frozen US funding to UNRWA in August 2018, before resuming it with Biden’s arrival to the presidency in 2021. At that time, Israel welcomed the Trump administration’s decision to accuse UNRWA of “prolonging the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” by perpetuating the principle of the “right of return” for refugees, which was consistent with the three reasons given by the Trump administration for this, which were that the continued work of UNRWA contributes to the continuation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the “right of return” that disrupts the peace process, then because the agency exaggerated in determining the number of refugees by continuing to register the children and grandchildren of the generation that lived through the Nakba in 1948, and finally because the administration believes that the agency’s financial work suffers from “irreparable defects.”
UNRWA Ban and Global Governance Aspects
The Israeli decision reflects the weakness of global governance institutions and their declining ability to manage humanitarian crises and conflicts and follow up on the implementation of international resolutions, especially those related to the protection of human rights. This applies to the work of UNRWA, which provides its services under a mandate from the United Nations General Assembly. Thus, the Israeli decision represents a challenge to the global governance system and a blow to the global trend calling for governance reform rather than avoiding it or searching for alternative tools. With regard to UNRWA, it could have been supported and enabled to carry out internal and institutional reforms if it was proven that it suffers from a specific problem in its facilities or the background of some of its employees, by intensifying monitoring and follow-up operations in these aspects, which would positively reflect on various other global governance institutions, as a model for reforming other institutions. This also represents an opportunity for multilateral action at the level of UNRWA’s host countries and the countries that support and fund it. However, the Israeli decision to ban it on the grounds that it needs to be reformed negatively affects the efforts of countries to reform other international institutions, and at the same time hinders those institutions from carrying out their functions and tasks, especially on the humanitarian level, as it shows the ability of countries to withdraw from international agreements and the ease with which they impose restrictions on the work of their employees and deprive them of their privileges and diplomatic immunity. In light of the multiplicity of conflict zones around the world, and the effectiveness of those institutions in providing their humanitarian and relief services, this is considered an extremely dangerous indicator that countries or other actors can use to pressure their political opponents, especially in the absence of an agreed-upon alternative or one capable of working in the same manner.
In fact, the Israeli decision to ban UNRWA is the latest example that illustrates the reflection of geopolitical conflicts, interests and rivalries on international institutions. Behind Israeli calculations and with the cover of effective allies, especially the United States, there is an attempt to transform the Palestinian issue from an international issue to an issue besieged by the perceptions of the Israeli right-wing government. While the United States and the international community are required to urge Israel to broaden the horizon regarding the relationship with UNRWA, the changes brought about by the US elections with the return of Donald Trump as president-elect make the repercussions of banning the agency and then global governance as a whole darker, given that the positions of the new US president on the United Nations and its agencies, especially UNRWA, are mostly negative. It is expected that after his return to the White House, he will support Israel’s decisions regarding banning UNRWA, and even seek to dissolve it and replace it with other international agencies that do not have legal, political and service weight.
Finally , the Israeli decision to ban UNRWA comes as an integral part of the Israeli government’s actions to impose its perceptions regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and an attempt to resolve that conflict instead of settling it. This decision was followed by statements by Israeli officials about moving towards “imposing Israeli sovereignty” over the West Bank, an issue that returned to the circle of Israeli interest with the victory of Donald Trump in the US elections, with their expectations that this victory would open the way for the Israeli government to impose its control over the West Bank.