The Israeli Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Sunday approved two bills aimed at banning the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. The projects will now go to second and third reading before becoming law.
The first law, proposed by an MP from the ultra-Israeli Beitenu group, aims to prohibit the Israeli authorities from any type of contact with UNRWA. The second would directly prohibit the agency from working on Israeli territory.
“All that remains is the vote in the Knesset plenary session,” said MK Yulia Malinovsky, promoter of the project. Malinovsky called on the coalition and opposition to unite: “[Para aprobar la ley] as soon as possible so we can get rid of UNRWA once and for all.
According to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth, UN Secretary-General Antònio Guterres sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressing his opposition to the project.
“It is extremely concerning that any member state of the United Nations would consider legislation that would fundamentally contravene the principles of the United Nations Charter,” Guterres noted in his letter. Last week, the Israeli government declared the Secretary-General persona non grata.
Israel denounces that the UN is “obsessed” with the Palestinian question and that many of its agencies, from the Human Rights Council to UNESCO, including UNRWA or the figure of the special rapporteur, have a party taken anti-Israeli. Israel’s Foreign Ministry even accused UNRWA – which lost 225 employees to bombing during that offensive – of being “friends of terrorists” and Netanyahu called for it to be shut down for promoting pro-government rhetoric. of the “elimination of Israel”.
Israel said in March that “a significant number” of UNRWA employees were “members of terrorist organizations.” However, in mid-April, an external investigation found that Israeli authorities had not provided sufficient evidence to support the alleged links to terrorism. »
