Israel has long claimed that the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees has long been a hotbed for sleeper cells and terrorists. Now, the country's authorities are not waiting for any explanation and took matters in their hands by proposing to ban UNRWA in all Israeli-held terretories.
Philippe Lazzarini told the U.N. Security Council that senior Israeli officials are bent on destroying the UNRWA, which is the main provider of humanitarian aid in Gaza, the Palestinian territory rocked by a year of war between Israel and Hamas.
An Israeli parliamentary committee approved a pair of bills this week that would ban UNRWA from operating in their areas and end all contact between the government and the U.N. agency. The bill needs final approval from the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
Lazzarini said in a video briefing that "legally, the Knesset legislation violates Israel’s obligation under the United Nations Charter and international law."
Israel has alleged that some of UNRWA’s thousands of staff members participated in the 7 October 2023, Hamas' attacks that sparked the war in Gaza. The U.N. has fired more than a dozen staffers after internal investigations found they may have participated in the attacks that killed 1,200 people in Israel. However, more are believed to be still embedded inside the agency.
Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon told the Security Council that UNRWA has allowed Hamas to infiltrate its ranks and that "this infiltration is so ingrained, so institutional, that the organization is simply beyond repair."
Danon noted that the head of Gaza’s teachers union was recently killed in Lebanon and revealed as a Hamas commander, saying this showed that UNRWA has been infiltrated "to the point where terrorists are running classrooms, indoctrinating future generations and hiding in plain sight under the banner of the United Nations."
UNRWA had suspended the union leader in March when allegations of his ties to Hamas emerged and launched an investigation.