Understandable but unacceptable: Israel bans UN aid agency

It is understandable but unacceptable that Israel is seeking to hobble the work of UNRWA, the major agency delivering aid to Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Two bills passed in the Knesset on Monday limit the operations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which provides education, social welfare, food and other services to millions of Palestinians. The first bans UNRWA inside Israel and the second revokes its tax exemptions and diplomatic status. Together they make it almost impossible for the agency to operate in East Jerusalem and substantially more difficult for it to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza or the West Bank.

The move is a response to Hamas’ infiltration into UNRWA, which includes harbouring terrorists involved in the October 7 massacre.

There is no question that UNRWA has been infiltrated, to some degree, by Hamas and other terrorist groups. Even the UN admits at least nine UNRWA staff members were involved in October 7. Israel says it has identified 450 UNRWA staff as military operatives in Gaza terrorist organisations, and has evidence that 10% of the organisation is connected with Hamas.

But limiting the work of UNRWA will worsen the situation on the ground, bringing misery to Palestinians without delivering security to Israelis.

The move displays the weakness of the Netanyahu government, and the opposition, and its lack of vision for what happens when the war ends. It exposes Israel to deserved international opprobrium, and risks placing Israel in a situation it emphatically does not want – responsible for supplying humanitarian aid to 2.23 million traumatised and angry Gazans. It only increases the danger that Israel may win the war but lose the peace.

The infiltration of UNRWA by Hamas should come as no surprise to anyone who understands the international aid sector. Relief agencies employ locals for practical and principled reasons: they are cheaper, they build capacity in local communities, and they have local knowledge to deliver services as they are needed.

Hamas is embedded in UNRWA because Hamas is embedded in Gaza. The aid agency employs some 14,000 people in Gaza, a region where two thirds of the population support Hamas, so it is inevitable that there are many Hamas supporters within UNRWA, and that some of them are active terrorists. They might be teachers or medics, drivers or cooks, but they are also rocket builders, rapists, hostage-takers and believers in the destruction of Israel and the murder of Israelis.

It is galling that while being paid by the international community under the guise of providing humanitarian services, these terrorists were able to prepare and execute October 7 and set off the war in Gaza – and now beyond – which has so devastated their own people.

It is also disastrous that some of them are diverting aid meant for the civilian population to Hamas cells. Hamas has no interest in defending, let alone supporting, its own people: it has declared that they are mostly refugees and the responsibility of the United Nations.

Obviously, every effort should be made to root out and punish terrorists who are misusing the cover of international aid and diverting resources meant for the Palestinian people for their own violent agenda. The UN, not Israel, should be responsible for keeping its agency honest – and it does not. 

But we must deal with realities. For all its considerable failings, UNRWA remains the main organisation that delivers aid to Palestinians who desperately need it. It runs most schools, hospitals and welfare organisations in the Strip.

Gaza was poverty-stricken and under-developed even before the Israel-Hamas war began. Israel’s operation to clear Hamas has displaced some 90% of the population; the terrorists’ insistence on embedding themselves in schools and hospitals has resulted in the destruction of the welfare infrastructure; and food security is precarious at best.

Despite grand ideas of alternative systems, including private contractors, there is literally no other option for Palestinians in Gaza, and therefore no other option for Israel.

It is certainly not in Israel’s interests to control Gaza: it needs to leave aid and rebuilding to international organisations, while working to find partners open to coexistence. It might use its failure with the Palestinian Authority as an object lesson in how not to behave when it finds such partners.

The move to limit UNRWA has a veneer of moral justification because UNRWA does protect terrorists. But the damage it will inflict on Palestinian civilians cannot be defended.

These bills are yet another example of the Netanyahu government’s capture by the far-right, whose “Greater Israel” vision includes assuming sovereignty over both Gaza and the West Bank. Just as they have used settlements to create “facts on the ground” in the West Bank, they hope to use Israeli control over aid to embed Israeli hegemony in Gaza. Netanyahu doesn’t have the will to risk his government by standing up to them.

No-one with a basic humanitarian compass or a broader vision for Israel’s future can want to extend Israel’s role as an occupier, let alone endorse the starvation of Palestinians, as mooted in the “Generals’ Plan” for siege on northern Gaza, nor the further displacement of Palestinians, as suggested by extremist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir at a recent conference promoting Jewish settlement in Gaza.

The move against UNRWA has been met with deep international opposition. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the legislation “fundamentally contradict[ed] the principles of the UN Charter”. Envoys from the US, Australia, the UK, Germany and Italy have been campaigning against the bills; and foreign ministers from Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom have issued a joint statement expressing their “grave concern”.

Limiting the organisation that brings food and medical care to Palestinians – whatever its sins – will inevitably fuel accusations that Israel is seeking to starve Gazans and strengthen the case against Israel for genocide at the International Court of Justice.

It’s not a good look, because it’s not a good move.

RELATED STORIES

One medic left at Gaza hospital as Israel says it arrested 100 terrorists (BBC)
Only one doctor remains at Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital following a days-long Israeli raid, a spokesman for the Hamas-run health ministry has said.

Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 70 as UN chief calls civilians’ plight ‘unbearable’ (Guardian)
One person killed as truck rams into bus stop in Israel, and Benjamin Netanyahu heckled at memorial event.

Defence Minister Gallant tells Netanyahu: israel is conducting war without a compass, needs new war goals (Haaretz)  
In a letter sent to Netanyahu and Israel's security cabinet, Gallant said 'the current situation in which we operate harms the management of the campaign and the cabinet's decisions.' He proposed four new war objectives, including the need for 'an alternative to Hamas rule' in Gaza.

Egypt proposes two day Gaza cease-fire to release four hostages, some Palestinian prisoners (Haaretz)  
Egypt's president proposed a plan for a short Gaza truce, followed by ten days of negotiations aimed at securing a permanent cease-fire. Sources familiar with the talks, however, say the chances this plan moves forward are low.

RELATED ANALYSIS

Don't cry for UNRWA. It helped sustain decades of Israel's occupation (Arnon Degani and Ido Dembin, Haaretz)
The calls to dismantle UNRWA after its employees allegedly took part in the October 7 attack don't reference its bigger failure – Israel's dependence on the aid agency to sustain decades of occupation and settlements.

Gaza is the horror that can't be denied. but Israelis will try (Dahlia Scheindlin, Haaretz)
Headlines have shifted to Iran, but Israel is still starving, bombing and expelling the population of northern Gaza. While Israeli society as a whole has activated its denial mode, the horrifying images – and the policy, statements and reality behind them – are causing some Israelis to protest war crimes, or even utter the word genocide.

Hamas at a crossroads: Sinwar’s death leaves a vacuum; Israeli actions make it harder to fill with a moderate (Mkhaimar Abusada, The Conversation)
Hamas will soon begin the process of deciding who will next head the militant Palestinian organization following the Oct. 16, 2024, killing of former leader Yahya Sinwar – but the task won’t be easy, or quick.

Ending Israel's war in Gaza won't be enough to stop the fighting in Lebanon (Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz)
Lebanon doesn't want any changes to UN Security Council Resolution 1701, while Israel and the United States demand an upgrade that would let Israel monitor implementation from the air and even send troops over the border. An agreement on this doesn't appear forthcoming.