It was sent in just two hours to Parliament, the Knesset, by two almost unanimous votes, and was barely noticed in Israel. However, this is an important act that calls into question both a United Nations agency, now prevented from operating, and the fate of humanitarian aid in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories. Beyond that, the future of the inhabitants of these territories, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem, is at stake.
By a clear majority, Israeli deputies approved, on Monday, October 28, two bills whose effect is to technically end the activities of UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees. The possibility of this vote, preceded by two commission reviews in recent months, had alarmed the United Nations, as well as many countries, particularly the United States, France and the United Kingdom. But Israeli elected officials ignored international warnings.
The first law passed Monday afternoon in the Knesset has the effect of prohibiting UNRWA activities from “sovereign territory” Israel, and thus East Jerusalem, conquered during the Six-Day War in 1967, before being annexed by a Knesset vote in 1980. The eastern part of Jerusalem is still considered occupied by the United Nations, as well as by the majority of international countries. community. This law, proposed by Boaz Bismuth, deputy of Likud (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party), will have the effect of suspending UNRWA activities in East Jerusalem, particularly in the field of education, but will also facilitate the eviction process of Premises occupied by the agency.
An “indispensable” agency
Boaz Bismuth stated, without further details, on Monday that meetings had been held in advance so that the Jerusalem municipality could replace UNRWA in a short time. On Monday afternoon he concluded: “Threats and pressure from the international community to block my bill have failed. » In a statement, he described UNRWA as“humanitarian agency for Hamas.” Without providing evidence, The Israeli government says it has estimated that about 10% of the agency’s employees (which has a total of 30,000, including 13,000 in Gaza) are affiliated with Hamas or Islamic Jihad. According to a UN investigation published in August, “nine people [de l’agence] could have been involved” in the massacres of October 7, 2023 that left 1,200 people dead in Israel. But the United Nations agency says it is waiting, in vain, for evidence to support Israeli accusations involving hundreds of people. An audit of the agency’s neutrality published in April by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna found that UNRWA remained “irreplaceable and indispensable”.
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