Iman Helles, a displaced mother sheltering in a facility run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, fears that she will now be “thrown out to the streets” with her three children.
Israel’s ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) came into effect on Thursday, and Helles relies almost fully on the organization to support her family in the devastated enclave.
Helles is among millions of Palestinians relying on the UN agency for sustenance, education and livelihoods, not only in Gaza but also across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
In October, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed two bills – one barring UNRWA from activity within Israel, and another banning Israeli authorities from any contact with UNRWA. The second bill revokes a 1967 treaty that allows the agency to provide services to Palestinian refugees in areas under Israel’s control.
The legislation came into effect Thursday, and it is expected to severely restrict UNRWA’s activities, with a potentially devastating human impact.
Israel has been trying to shut down the agency for years, but it escalated measures against it after Hamas-led militants attacked the country on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostage. Israel accused some UNRWA employees of participating in that attack.
A UN investigation found that nine employees from UNWRA’s 13,000 staff in Gaza “may have” been involved in the attack and no longer work at the agency. But UNRWA has long maintained that Israel hasn’t provided it with evidence against its former employees. The agency says it had regularly provided Israel with a full list of its staff members and has accused Israel of detaining and torturing some of its staffers, coercing them into making false confessions about ties to Hamas.
How Israel intends to proceed with the ban remains unclear, but some of its effects are already underway. On Sunday, Israel ordered UNRWA to “vacate all premises in occupied East Jerusalem and cease its operations in them by 30 January 2025,” the UN agency said.
Israel also shortened the validity of all visas for UNRWA’s international staff to Wednesday, the UN said. This “is tantamount to being evicted,” UNRWA spokesperson Jonathan Fowler said.
“UNRWA’s international staff at the East Jerusalem office had to evacuate and relocate to Amman, Jordan earlier in the day,” the UN said Wednesday. “Office equipment and vehicles have been moved out, and efforts are continuing to digitize its archives.”
‘Disastrous’ effect
Days before the ban, the UN warned against its detrimental effects, while Israel insisted the agency is replaceable, and that it is committed to the flow of aid into Gaza.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said on Tuesday that its implementation will be “disastrous.”
“The government of Israel claims that UNRWA’s services can be transferred to other entities,” Lazzarini said, adding that his agency is unique in its mandate “to provide public-like services,” which “can only be transferred to a functioning state.”
In a Tuesday speech at the UN, Israel’s representative, Danny Danon, said that “this legislation is about what is happening in Israel; it’s not about what’s happening in Gaza, in Jordan, in Lebanon. But we will not allow UNRWA to work from Israel.”
Danon added that UNRWA’s role in Gaza is expected to be phased out and replaced by other UN agencies. “I think it’s going to be a gradual process until other agencies will step in and will take their positions,” Danon told reporters.
Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said on Wednesday that some of these agencies will include the World Food Programme (WFP), UN children’s agency (UNICEF) and UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS), which already operate in Gaza. All three agencies have worked closely with UNRWA, with WFP and UNICEF condemning the ban on their partner UN agency.
More than 912,000 Palestinian refugees are also registered with UNRWA in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, around a quarter of whom live in 19 refugee camps. In the West Bank, UNRWA caters to more than 45,000 students, and runs some 96 schools, 43 healthcare facilities and 19 women’s centers. It has also provided loans amounting to $225.3 million.
Israel insists Palestinians will not experience an aid vacuum, saying that UNRWA’s aid contribution is minimal – a claim refuted by both UNRWA and other UN agencies.
Other agencies “will have no choice but to continue and to increase their efforts,” Danon said.
UNRWA workers’ safety
The ban also raises questions about the safety of thousands of UNRWA workers in Gaza, of whom more than 270 have already been killed since the war began, according to the agency. The conflict has also killed more than 47,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the health ministry there.
Asked if UNRWA staff are safe, Danon said: “It’s not (up to) us to take care of their safety.”
Mencer described UNRWA on Wednesday as “a failed institution” that is “permeated with terrorism.” He then accused the agency of perpetuating the conflict, saying it “glorifies Jew-killing, glorifies jihad.”
Hoda Hussein, who was displaced with her family from north of Khan Younis, described the UNRWA ban as “a second starvation and a new war on the Gaza Strip.”
“We rely on God, then on them (UNRWA),” she said, adding that for 15 months they had nowhere else to go.
“We rely on it fully, for everything.”