The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) may be declared a terrorist organization, its staff stripped of immunity and its activities inside Israel outlawed, under a series of bills that have been proposed in the Knesset.
The UNRWA was established in 1949 to deal with Palestinian refugees and has a mandate to operate in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has accused it of aiding and abetting Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups.
“We are on the UN’s blacklist in any case. All the excessive morality ended on October 7,” MK Yulia Malinovsky of Yisrael Beitenu, who proposed to designate the UNRWA as a terrorist organization, said on Monday. She called the agency “a fifth column” within Israel.
The Knesset voted 50-10 in favor of her bill, in the first reading. Israeli lawmakers also advanced the bills that would ban the UNRWA from any activity on the territory of Israel, and strip the agency personnel of legal immunity and privileges normally due to UN staff.
The three bills were sent to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for further deliberation. They will have to pass two more votes to go into effect.
UNRWA employs more than 30,000 people and has provided food aid, healthcare, education, and social services to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as those seeking asylum in neighboring countries. According to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, over two million people depend on it for their survival.
The Israeli government claimed in January that a dozen UNRWA employees took part in the October 7 attacks by Hamas, in which around 1,100 Israelis died and about 250 were taken captive into Gaza. West Jerusalem also claimed that 190 UNRWA staffers provided intelligence and logistical support to Hamas and allowed the attackers to use the agency’s facilities as safehouses.
The accusations caused 18 donor nations to withdraw funding from UNRWA, including the US, UK, and Germany. In April, however, an independent review commissioned by the UN announced that Israel had provided no evidence to support the claims.
Israel responded to the October 7 by launching air and artillery strikes into Gaza, followed by a ground invasion. As of Monday, more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed and almost 90,000 injured, according to official estimates by the Gaza Health Ministry.
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