Briefing ambassadors in New York on Tuesday, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini warned that the Israeli ban on the UN agency will jeopardize the lives of millions of Palestinians and it also risks undermining the fragile ceasefire in Gaza.
They require that UNRWA cease its activities in the territory of the State of Israel – including the occupied West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem as the Knesset defines it, in defiance of international law – as well as restricting any Government contacts with the agency or anyone acting on its behalf, he said.
“Curtailing our operations now – outside a political process, and when trust in the international community is so low – will undermine the ceasefire. It will sabotage Gaza’s recovery and political transition,” Lazzarini added, while calling for a “decisive intervention” by the Council to support peace and stability in the occupied Palestinian territory and the broader region. He also stressed that the full implementation of the Knesset legislation will be “disastrous”.
In Gaza, undermining UNRWA’s operations would compromise the international humanitarian response, he said, adding that it would also degrade the capacity of the United Nations just when humanitarian assistance must be scaled up. “This will only worsen the already catastrophic living conditions of millions of Palestinians.”
UNRWA has been told to vacate its headquarters in East Jerusalem by Thursday following bills passed by the Israeli parliament in October banning its operations in Israel and the Palestinian territories and designating it a terror organisation.
While most of UNRWA’s activities take place in the West Bank and Gaza, it is hugely dependent on an agreement with Israel to operate, including access to border crossings into Gaza including for humanitarian aid.
The UN said that more than 370,000 Palestinians returned to northern Gaza since Monday. Many have found enormous piles of rubble where their homes and neighbourhoods once stood.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that US President Donald Trump invited him to visit the White House on February 4. Netanyahu would be the first foreign leader Trump is hosting at the White House since he began his second term in office.
