Israel’s outlawing of UNRWA will make life ‘unbearable’ for Palestinians | Israeli-Palestinian conflict News

Beirut, Lebanon – Israel’s widely criticized ban on the UN Palestinian Relief Agency (UNRWA) is part of a broader attempt to undermine the rights of Palestinian refugees and drive them out of the occupied territories, analysts told Al Jazeera.

The agency’s ban will take effect in three months and will worsen the already disastrous situation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

“The latest law is part of a campaign (by Israel) to destroy any aid infrastructure,” said Tahani Mustafa, an Israel-Palestine expert at the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit organization focused on conflict resolution.

“But it is also part of a broader goal of expelling the Palestinians from their lands forever,” she told Al Jazeera.

According to the International Court of Justice, UNRWA, as the largest provider of aid to Palestine refugees, has played an important role in keeping people alive in the Gaza Strip, where civilians face the risk of genocide.

Over the past year, Israel has expelled almost the entire Gaza Strip population of 2.3 million and killed some 43,000 people. The war began after a Hamas attack on southern Israel in which 1,139 people were killed and about 250 captured.

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have lived under an Israeli-imposed land, sea and air blockade since 2007, resulting in rights groups calling the enclave an “open-air prison.”

Israel now appears to be trying to depopulate the Gaza Strip by cutting off services to UNRWA, the population’s vital lifeline, analysts say.

“It seems very clear from the way Israel is fighting this war that Israel is trying to make life so difficult in Gaza that people are leaving,” said Khaled Elgindi, an expert on Israel and Palestine and a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. .

Erasing Nakba evidence?

In 1948, Zionist militias expelled 750,000 Palestinians from their land to create the state of Israel – an event called the Nakba, or disaster.

Many Palestinians were left stateless, languishing in the occupied territories and in refugee camps in neighboring states, while Israel was recognized as a full member of the United Nations.

That same year, the UN General Assembly also established UNRWA to assist Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria until they can return to their homes, as provided for in UN Resolution 194.

Israeli and U.S. leaders have traditionally viewed UNRWA as a way to appease the Palestinians by providing them with vital supplies without giving them political rights, Elgindi explained.

However, he added that over the past decade, Israel and the United States have increasingly attempted to sabotage the aid agency.

Former US President Donald Trump went so far as to suspend his country’s support for UNRWA in 2018, triggering a funding crisis.

Palestinian refugees perceived Trump’s move as an attack on their right to return to their homeland, which is enshrined in UNRWA.

Elgindy believes that Israel is now clearly trying to undermine this right by erasing any legitimate mention of the Nakba or Palestinian refugees.

“(UNRWA is a reminder) that the creation of Israel came through the dispossession of the Palestinian people, and that is what (Israel) wants to erase from history.

“UNRWA is a constant reminder of the 1948 Nakba.”

Indispensable

Israel’s attack on UNRWA is part of a broader attempt to cut off a vital lifeline for Palestinians, argues Zaid Amali, an UNRWA card holder and civil society activist in the West Bank.

He noted that millions of Palestinians rely on UNRWA for employment, housing reconstruction, sanitation, health care and education.

The loss of these vital services, coupled with daily Israeli raids and the destruction of Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank, is designed to eradicate the population, Amalie told Al Jazeera.

“UNRWA is indispensable because of its experience and personnel. The mandate itself is so large that it makes it indispensable, so I don’t see any organization – international or local – capable of filling this gap,” he told Al Jazeera.

Diana Buttu, an expert on Israel and Palestine and former legal adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), added that the Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs some territory in the occupied West Bank, will not be able to fill the vacuum.

The PA was born out of the Oslo Accords, in which then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat shook hands with then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn in 1993.

The purpose of the agreement was to lay the foundation of a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with its capital in East Jerusalem.

Since 2006, the PA’s presence has been limited to the West Bank after Hamas ousted it from the Gaza Strip following a brief conflict.

The PA may now face the impossible task of replacing UNRWA, Buttu said.

“The Palestinians will either leave (the West Bank and Gaza) or disappear into the PA structures,” she added. “This is extremely problematic because the PA does not have the resources to afford all these schools and medical clinics.

“(PA) just can’t do it. There is not even a PA to distribute food in Gaza.”

Is the reason at risk?

The Palestinian cause will be at risk if the world community allows Israel to unilaterally destroy the structures and institutions that recognize Palestinians as people with rights, Amali warns.

He noted that Israel has killed hundreds of UN staff in the Gaza Strip, banned UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres from entering the country, and Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan even tore up the UN charter in front of the General Assembly.

Israel’s provocative gesture at the UN was a reaction to the non-binding General Assembly vote that effectively recognized Palestine as a state in May 2024.

“Israel’s entire behavior (towards the UN) is an indicator that Palestine’s presence in the international forum threatens Israel because it means (global) recognition of Palestinian rights,” he told Al Jazeera.

Tahani, the Crisis Group expert, said Israel could next step up its offensive against the PA, the body that de facto represents the Palestinians at the UN and the world community. She noted that Israel already withholds $188 million in tax revenues it collects on behalf of the PA, which is part of the agreement in the Oslo Accord.

UNRWA, in her opinion, is only the main target at the moment.

“This is not just an arbitrary decision by Israel to do whatever it wants. There is a clear goal, which, as I said, is to make life completely unbearable for Palestinians on the ground,” she told Al Jazeera.

“So they are either forcibly expelled or they are ‘voluntarily’ going to leave.”