Pearls and Irritations

As the Israeli military obliterates Gaza, massacres refugees living in tents in so called “safe zones” and slaughters 39,000 people including at least 16,000 children, its government works to “finish off” UNRWA.

It is doing this by killing 197 of its staff in Gaza, bombing its schools and health facilities, destroying its distribution centres, its headquarters in Gaza, freezing its assets and closing down its Jerusalem offices, and it now is in the process of passing legislation designating a United Nations body, UNRWA as a “terrorist organisation”. It is a step in a long held desire by Israel to remove UNRWA from the Gaza and the West Bank.

UNRWA reports that “On May 30, the Knesset approved the first reading of legislation authorising the Foreign Ministry to designate UNRWA as a terror organisation and strip it of its diplomatic immunity, tax-exempt status, and other legal benefits.” This is a dangerous attack on the United Nations and on the principles that it stands for and if successful sets a dangerous precedent for similar extremest and right winged nations to destroy the international order represented by the UN.

In addition to its actions in Gaza there have been several assaults on UNRWA in East Jerusalem that have become increasingly dangerous with at least two arson attacks on the Jerusalem compound, where crowds including children chanted “let the UN burn”, and threw stones. Staff doing their work and travelling across the Occupied Territories have also faced dangerous harassment and UNRWA cars have been attacked by settlers. In Gaza UNRWA convoys have come under attack despite coordinating movement.

In contrast to this move by the Israeli government, 118 countries shared a commitment to provide ongoing funding of UNRWA at the recent UNRWA Pledging Conference held on July 12^th this year. These countries pledged funds as well as strong political support for the agency. Countries that withdrew funding in February, including Australia, have now restored that funding and there is hope that with a new Labor Government in the UK that country will also. The USA is yet to do so.

In reporting on that Conference the UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini also noted the viciousness and danger of the attacks on UNRWA both in Gaza and the West Bank saying that “ More than two million people are trapped in a living hell. Thousands of children have been killed. Thousands more are struggling with new disabilities. Many have lost their limbs to amputation, their hearing to blasts, and their speech to shock and trauma.” He went on to comment that “in more than 30 years of humanitarian work, I have never encountered such blatant disregard for the protected status of humanitarian workers, facilities and operations under international law. Turning a blind eye to these attacks sets a dangerous precedent, undermining respect for the rules-based international order in other conflicts.”

So why is UNRWA so critical to Palestinian refugees and why does Israel want to remove it entirely from Gaza and the West Bank? On December 8^th 1949 UNRWA was established to meet the needs of the 700,000 refugees driven from their homes by Israel as it established its state. UNRWA operations are spread across the Occupied West Bank – including East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, supporting an approximate 6 million refugees nearly 75 years after their forced removal from Palestine. Its mandate is to provide these refugees with emergency relief food, social services, primary health care and education in its numerous schools but it does not have a mandate to resettle Palestinian refugees. And for Israel that is the sticking point.

Israel wants to remove UNRWA and replace it with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees UNHCR, that does have that mandate to provide only temporary protection and assistance with resettlement if possible. However only a small fraction of UNHCR refugees are ever resettled – less than 4% in 2022. Unlike UNRWA, UNHCR does not provide refugees in any of its fields of operation with education or health care. Long standing refugees such as those from Afghanistan or from other conflicts rely on non-government or other UN organisations for such services.

To the extremest Israeli there are numerous reasons why UNRWA should be destroyed. The first is demographic. Israel has a population of approximately 7.2 Jews and 2 million Arab Israeli Palestinians and another nearly 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. These extremest see UNRWA as preserving the Palestinians right of return as guaranteed under the 1948 UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which said that Palestinian refugees who wished to return to their homes and live peacefully with their neighbours “should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date”. Should that Resolution ever be implemented then Israel’s Jewish majority would be threatened. Realistically at this stage that is an unlikely scenario but a one state solution to the conflict would certainly impact on this demography.

In addition, and this is probably why UNRWA schools and facilities in Gaza have been so savagely targeted militarily, is that the Israeli government believes that these schools and their educational programs, including their text books are anti-Israel and antisemitic, an allegation numerous reviews have continued to deny. UNRWA has long been described by Israeli politicians as a symbol of anti-Israel sentiment and a symbol of the unresolved plight of Palestinian refugees and sites of resistance to Israeli occupation. In this last week another Gazan school and UNRWA headquarters have been targeted and demolished. Over 17 people were killed and 80 injured when an UNRWA school was bombed by the IDF in the Nuseirat refugee camp and a few days ago, in a tent city designated a safe zone in the al Mawasi area, some 90 people were killed in their tents and over 300 wounded. Many of these were children.

If another agency such as UNHCR were to take over UNRWA as Israel presently wishes it is possible that those refugees would only be given aid on the condition that they sign a document disavowing their right to return. Again an unlikely scenario.

Finally, according to Lex Takkenberg, former chief of UNRWA’s ethics office, the international community will not allow UNRWA to collapse and he states that “UNRWA seems to be such a significant and important instrument for the broader international community – and especially the countries supporting Israel – that they have always come to the rescue.” The support given to UNRWA at the recent Pledging Conference illustrates this financial and political support.

In the meantime Israel continues to bomb UNRWA schools, facilities and its headquarters and continues to impede its functions across the Occupied Territories. Have we heard our Australian government speak out about these atrocities and attacks on United Nations facilities and infrastructure and continued violations of international laws?? Maybe I have missed these condemnations, but I somehow doubt it.

Share and Enjoy !

SHARE TWEET SHARE COPY EMAIL PRINT