Israel Urges The United Nations And Aid Groups To Replace UNRWA's Role In Gaza

The handover of aid to civilians in Gaza affected by the conflict. (Source: UNRWA)

JAKARTA - Israel has actively encouraged UN agencies and other aid groups to take over the work of the UN Palestinian aid agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, Israel's ambassador said on Monday, after banning the agency in Israeli territory in January.

"We, the State of Israel, are trying to find a replacement for the law, for UNRWA work within Gaza," Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva Daniel Meron told reporters.

He declined to provide details, but said Israel "propelled UN agencies and NGOs to take over each in their own field which became their specialty."

Israel's ban on UNRWA came into force on January 30, after the Supreme Court rejected a petition from human rights groups opposing the move, quoted by The Times of Israel.

UNRWA, officially known as the UN Aid and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, is now banned from operating on Israeli soil, and contacts between the agency and Israeli officials are also banned.

The ban was passed by Knesset in November 2024 with the majority of votes, with the support of opposition parties, amid a series of disclosures about the agency's employees actively engaged in terror groups in the Gaza Strip, the participation of some of its staff in the Hamas invasion and attack on October 7, 2023, to repeated use of UNRWA infrastructure for terror activities.

Hamas said it had delivered 60 percent of food aid that had reached Gaza since the war began with Hamas' attack on October 7, 2023 against Israel.

UNRWA was founded in 1949 after the 1948 Israeli Independence War. The agency provides assistance, health, and education for millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and neighboring Arab countries Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.

About 5.9 million people were registered as Palestinian refugees by UNRWA, as they were descendants of Arabs who fled the war around the formation of Israel in 1948.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the agency's role was irreplaceable and asked for the ban to be lifted.

"I regret this decision and ask the Israeli government to revoke it," said the UN Secretary General, stressing that UNRWA was irreplaceable.

Meanwhile, UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said UNRWA's capacity to distribute aid was "far beyond any other entity."

The United Nations said the replacement of the Palestinian humanitarian aid agency (UNRWA) in Gaza and the West Bank was not the responsibility of the institution it leads.

"I would like to note, as a general point, it is not our responsibility to replace UNRWA, and we also do not have the capacity to do so," UN Secretary-General spokesman Antonio Guterres, Courtenay Rattray, told a senior Israeli foreign affairs official last November, after Israel notified the end of a 1967 cooperation agreement with UNRWA.