Israel has officially told the United Nations that it plans to cut off all ties with the UN agency that helps Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). This move is raising alarms among the country’s allies and aid workers, who are warning that it could make the already bad humanitarian situation in the Middle East even worse.
Last week, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed two new laws. These laws ban UNRWA from operating in Israeli territory and stop Israel from having any official contact with the agency. The reason behind this is Israel’s claim that Hamas has infiltrated the UN organization.
The ban isn’t immediate — it’ll kick in after three months. But Israel’s first step toward making this official was a letter sent by their ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, to the UN Secretary General and the president of the General Assembly. In the letter, Israel formally pulled out of a cooperation deal they had with UNRWA since 1967.
Danon wasn’t shy about why Israel’s doing this. On social media platform X (formerly Twitter), he said that Israel gave the UN plenty of proof showing Hamas had infiltrated UNRWA, but the UN didn’t do anything about it.
Back in August, the UN did an internal investigation and found that nine UNRWA workers might have been involved in a surprise Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023. That attack led to the deaths of around 1,200 people and 250 others being taken hostage, which sparked the ongoing conflict.
UNRWA is a massive deal in Gaza. They’ve got about 13,000 employees there and are basically the biggest aid organization in the area. The UN denies the claims that the agency has been seriously compromised by Hamas, though.
Experts in humanitarian aid — and even some of Israel’s closest allies — are saying there’s no real replacement for UNRWA when it comes to helping Palestinians, not just in Gaza, but also in the West Bank and other parts of the region. If Israel goes through with this ban, it could seriously mess up services for a population that depends more and more on aid.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, said things are already bad. Israel has cut down the amount of aid going into Gaza to just a trickle. On average, only about 30 aid trucks are getting in per day, which is just 6% of what used to be sent before the war started.
Lazzarini didn’t sugarcoat it: “Cutting down humanitarian access and taking apart UNRWA is just going to add more pain to what’s already unbearable suffering,” he said. “The only real solution here is political.”
The U.S. government is also frustrated. On Monday, the State Department said Israel hasn’t done enough to improve conditions in Gaza. Washington had set a deadline for Israel, basically giving them 30 days to make some real changes or face consequences, which could include stopping U.S. weapons transfers to Israel.
A spokesperson for the State Department, Matthew Miller, said things haven’t really improved much. “Yes, we’ve seen some progress, like more crossings being opened, but Israel still hasn’t met the specific steps we outlined,” he said.
In the past 13 months since that Hamas attack, Israel’s military response has been intense, killing over 43,000 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to numbers from the Gaza health ministry. Though the ministry is run by Hamas, the UN says their death toll figures are reliable.
Recently, Israel has focused its military campaign in northern Gaza, especially in areas like Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya, and Jabalia, which have been hit hard by bombings. Even hospitals in the area aren’t safe. On Monday, the Kamal Adwan hospital came under direct fire, according to its director, Hossam Abu Safieh. He described the situation as “catastrophic,” saying the hospital didn’t get any warning from the army before it was attacked. “We’ve had several staff members injured, and we can’t even leave the hospital,” he said.
This all comes at a time when health workers have been trying to give children in Gaza their second round of polio vaccinations. Over the weekend, the World Health Organization (WHO) managed to vaccinate 94,431 kids, which is about 79% of the children they’re targeting in northern Gaza. They need to hit at least 90% coverage to stop the virus from spreading. But there are still about 15,000 kids trapped in areas under siege by Israeli forces, and they can’t get the vaccine because of the ongoing military operations.
