The United Nations must recognize that Israel's assaults on the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) are an essential component of the Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people. This assertion is not from critics of Israel but from Jerusalem's Deputy Mayor Arieh King, who in January declared, "God willing, we will expel, kill, eliminate, and destroy all UNRWA personnel." UNRWA, established in 1948 after Israel's creation to serve Palestinian refugees, is involved in nearly every aspect of life for millions of Palestinians, including primary healthcare, education, social services, and refugee camp improvements.
UNRWA's extensive and recently digitized archive contains property deeds and land ownership proofs, which could assist Palestinians in securing compensation and the right of return—viewed by many Israelis as an existential threat to the Jewish state. The agency's very existence, as a reminder of Palestinians' inalienable rights including self-determination, has made its physical and political destruction a priority for successive Israeli governments, as evidenced by numerous public statements from Israeli officials.
Israel's decades-long campaign against UNRWA escalated dramatically with the latest phase of genocide beginning in October 2023. This is because UNRWA's mission to promote long and healthy lives for Palestinians directly contradicts Israel's genocidal goals, which, according to the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, include imposing conditions of life intended to bring about their destruction in whole or in part. In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its provisional ruling on the genocide case brought by South Africa found that Israel was not allowing necessary humanitarian aid into Gaza.
UNRWA's Gaza-wide aid delivery infrastructure, including a vast food distribution network serving over a million people, if allowed to function, would have rendered Israel's genocidal strategy of starvation and aid embargo unachievable. Central to Israel's campaign was the dehumanization of UNRWA staff as terrorists. Within weeks of the October 2023 attacks, Israel launched a global disinformation campaign against UNRWA, baselessly accusing agency staff of involvement.
The accusations against UNRWA were the ultimate lie in service of genocide. Consequently, all major donors withdrew funding, severely crippling the agency's ability to deliver services. In the following two and a half years, nearly 400 UNRWA staff members were killed by Israeli forces, and hundreds of its facilities were deliberately targeted, destroyed, or damaged in violation of international law. The Knesset passed laws effectively banning UNRWA's international staff from Palestine, contravening the UN Charter.
In August 2024, an independent investigation led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna found that Israel failed to provide any evidence to support its accusations against UNRWA. Some donors resumed support, while others, such as the United States and Sweden, disgracefully did not. As Philippe Lazzarini prepares to leave office after a six-year term as UNRWA Commissioner-General, during which the systematic dismantling of the agency occurred, his parting message is that UNRWA is on the verge of collapse. He rightly blames the donor community for failing to provide the necessary financial and political support.
Shockingly, the UN system itself failed to defend the agency, particularly the falsely accused UNRWA staff dismissed without evidence. UN Secretary-General António Guterres bought into Israel's false accusations, stating in January 2024 that he was "horrified" by the potential involvement of UNRWA staff in attacks. Lazzarini justified the pre-investigation dismissal of staff as "reverse due process" to protect UNRWA's reputation.
The key objective of the genocide is to deprive Palestinians of essential services, drive them from their ancestral lands, and inflict intergenerational trauma to prevent their return. UNRWA, as the living embodiment of the UN's enduring responsibilities to Palestinians, is mandated to oppose this multi-dimensional assault. It must not be allowed to become another victim of Israel's genocide against the Palestinian people. It is time for UNRWA's main donors to acknowledge that Israel's existential attack on the agency is part of its ongoing genocide and to impose economic, political, and diplomatic sanctions on Israel, as failure to do so risks complicity in genocide.
Source: www.aljazeera.com