MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

UN agency banned in Israel

“These bills increase the suffering of Palestinians and are nothing more than collective punishment,” UNRWA Chief Lazzarini said

Israel's Knesset (Parliament) passed bills Monday preventing the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) from working in the country. The agency has been active in the region for 70 years and has around 20,000 employees to provide education, healthcare, social and humanitarian assistance. The measure is expected to hamper the agency's work in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, Agencia Brasil reported.

UNRWA Chief Philippe Lazzarini said that such legislation violates the UN Charter and Israel's obligations under international law, and is yet another campaign to discredit the agency. “These bills will only deepen the suffering of Palestinians, especially in Gaza where people are going through more than a year of pure hell. This will deprive more than 650,000 girls and boys of access to education, putting an entire generation of children at risk,” he said on social media.

Lazzarini argued that ending UNRWA cannot take away Palestinians' refugee status protected by a UN General Assembly resolution. “These bills increase the suffering of Palestinians and are nothing more than collective punishment,” he added.

“That status is protected by another UN General Assembly resolution until a just and lasting solution to the plight of the Palestinians is found,” the commissioner said.

Israel has accused UNRWA of collaborating with the terrorist organization Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups. “Israel has made public statements that a significant number of UNRWA staff are members of terrorist organizations. However, Israel has yet to provide proof of this,” says the document produced by Frenchwoman Catherine Colonna, a former European foreign minister, in partnership with representatives of human rights institutes in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.

The bills banning UNRWA's work in Israel were criticized by the foreign ministers of Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom.

Israel's allies expressed “grave concern” at the measure which, in their view, will have devastating consequences for an already critical and rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation. “Without its work, the provision of such assistance and services, including education, medical care, and fuel distribution in Gaza and the West Bank would be severely hampered, if not impossible,” the countries said in a statement, adding that the Israeli government must “keep UNRWA's reserve privileges and immunities untouched and fulfill its responsibility to facilitate full, prompt, safe and unimpeded humanitarian assistance.”

The European Union (EU) also criticized the move: “All UN agencies embody the rules-based international order, as they uphold and implement both the letter and the spirit of the UN Charter, which all UN member states must respect.”