Israeli Effort to Delegitimise and Destroy United Nations Relief and Works Agency

At the behest of the Netanyahu government of Israel, the Knesset – the country`s parliament had passed two controversial resolutions on 28th October this year, demanding the disbandment of United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) on the ground that it is infiltrated by the HAMAS and is subservient to its dictates. The virtual ban on UNRWA is to take effect within 90 days of the adoption of the resolutions by the Knesset. The Knesset resolutions have forbidden contact between Israeli officials and UNRWA personnel and also directed the latter cease functioning in Gaza and in Palestine in the West Bank area. During the entire period subsequent to 7th October 2023 when, HAMAS launched its most vicious attack on the Israeli borderlands adjacent to eastern Gaza, there has been periodic claims by the Israeli government that UNRWA is working as a propaganda tool of HAMAS, the militant group ruling Gaza, and the UNRWA maintained facilities like hospitals, schools, refugee sheltering camps, etc, being used as hideouts of the HAMAS fighters. Israel has always downplayed the role UNRWA has performed in regard to distribution of relief, running of hospitals and schools. Philippe Lazarrini, commissioner general and head of UNRWA, in an address to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on 6th November this year, has succinctly mentioned that the Knesset legislation is a furtherance of Israel`s war goal and that they seek to end Palestinians` right to self-determination and aspiration for a just political solution.

Entire Gaza has seen more than direct 45000 civilian deaths, indirect deaths likely to be multiple times higher, 6000 to 10000 missing and more than 107500 wounded. More than half of the casualties are children. The entire Gaza`s population of 2.23 million people, has been displaced. Enormous destruction of the permanent housing structures, schools and hospitals, water supply system and power infrastructure have occurred. Despite the above-stated destruction, UNRWA is the only agency functioning with international financial support and a UN mandated institutional arrangement which has been providing succor to the hapless Gazans who are a completely internally displaced set of people today. While functioning in Gaza particularly, since 7th October 2023 at least 190 UNRWA facilities have been damaged or destroyed, and at least 233 UNRWA employees killed by the Israeli military.

Lazzarini has appealed to the UN Members and the world community at large, not to allow the closure on UNRWA activities as demanded by Israel, inter-alia appealing for continuance of the funding support from UN Member countries. Lazzarini has also pointedly highlighted that, an institution set up under UN mandate after the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1948, should not be wound up under Israel`s pressure, reckoning its track record of rendering yeoman service as a humanitarian institution to the Palestinians when famine and destruction of the Palestinians as a race and human entity looms large.

Lazzarini has further implored that, without intervention by Member States of the UN, UNRWA will collapse, plunging millions of Palestinians into chaos. The UNRWA commissioner general has conveyed three urgent requests to the UNGA to the effect that, the latter prevent the implementation of the Israeli parliamentary legislation against UNRWA since changes in the UNRWA mandate is the prerogative of the UNGA and within its remit and not within the purview of individual states. Lazzarini has further requested that Member States ensure that any plan for a political solution delineates UNRWA`s role. The commissioner general has finally appealed to the UNGA that, Member States maintain funding to UNRWA and cautioned that, abrupt dismantling of UNRWA will cost more than half a billion dollars in staff separation indemnities alone.

At present, the UN is buffeted by action of its Member States in many ways, striking at the root of its effectiveness where the belligerency has continued with no decisive action by the UN Security Council (UNSC) because of conflicting postures and policies of the Permanent Members of the UNSC. Examples are the Ukraine-Russia war, numerous action by Israel aggrandising Arab territory and belligerent action at many places in the Middle East, threats from civil war in Sudan, etc. Such inaction has already harmed its position as an institution for maintenance of international peace and stability. At this juncture, if the Israeli State`s action in respect of UNRWA is allowed to go unchallenged, it will be one more action of one of its Member States towards exposing the impotence of the UN system. Such a harmful assault on the UN system can be countered if the UNGA, which is de-jure and de-facto the most and the only UN principal organ truly representative of the entire Member States, reiterates a demand enjoining on the Member States to sustain UNRWA, its personnel as deployed now, from Gaza and entire Palestine. The UNGA should obligate the Member States to maintain their respective level of financial support ante-7th October 2023 (the day of HAMAS assault on Israel) to UNRWA and direct the UN Secretary General to convey to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) that any action by the Israeli State contrary to the mandate of UNGA vis-à-vis UNRWA, would be deemed as contributing to promotion of genocide, deprivation of life and sustenance of the Palestinian people.

Action as suggested above would be entirely in consonance of the UN Charter and basic humanitarian law. A manifest display of political will by the UN community is required in support of basic human rights and livelihood of the Palestinians – particularly of the Gazans. Such action will in no way impinge on or detract from the rights of the Israeli people, their security, stability and welfare of the Israeli State and its citizens. Action as above i.e. instituting action through the UNGA and follow-up by the ICJ and ICC, would enable bypassing the UN Security Council (UNSC) where, vetoes by any one or more of the permanent UNSC Members would nullify the expression of international will through the UNGA.

Commissioner general of UNRWA has already highlighted the consequences of removal of UNRWA from Palestine and Gaza in particular. Therefore, removal of UNRWA as a relief and rehabilitation organization would create a huge vacuum from humanitarian angle for the Palestinians and Gazans, which cannot be filled up in the immediate and near future. The danger lies in the fact that, the present Israeli government, by removing this humanitarian relief imparting organization of which there is no parallel in the Middle East, would have achieved a complete subjugation of the territories and its people, in which UNRWA has been functioning for more than 70 years, as a modern era unique institution. The UN has an inherent responsibility to ensure that Israel`s attempt to eliminate UNRWA does not become a desperate attempt to liquidate the Palestinian cause and kill a just political solution.

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