On 28 October, despite international opposition, Israeli lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to approve two bills that essentially ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA) and their descendants from operating in Israel and severely restrict its activities in Gaza and the West Bank.
During the opening plenum session of the Knesset’s winter legislative session, MKs voted 92 to 10 in favour of the law that prohibits UNRWA from operating in Israeli territory and 87–9 in favour of another measure restricting UNRWA’s activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank by banning state authorities from having any contact with the agency. Without coordination with Israel, it would be almost impossible for UNRWA to operate in Gaza or the West Bank as Jerusalem would no longer issue entrance permits to those territories or allow coordination with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Israel also currently controls access to Gaza from Egypt, with Israeli forces deployed along the border between them.
‘UNRWA workers involved in terrorist activities against Israel must be held accountable. Since avoiding a humanitarian crisis is also essential, sustained humanitarian aid must remain available in Gaza now and in the future,’ the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement issued in English. ‘In the 90 days before this legislation takes effect—and after—we stand ready to work with our international partners to ensure Israel continues to facilitate humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not threaten Israel’s security,’ Netanyahu’s office added.
UNWRA’s Ties to Terror
Israel has revealed that numerous UNRWA officials and staff members directly participated in and assisted with the brutal atrocities on 7 October, providing evidence against several of these employees. In February 2024 Defense Minister Yoav Gallant revealed the identities of 12 UNRWA staff members who actively participated in the Hamas-led 7 October onslaught on southern Israel and added that based on IDF’s intelligence, more than 450 Gaza-based UNRWA employees were members of terrorist organizations, primarily Hamas, and more than 30 UNRWA workers participated in the massacre, facilitated the taking of hostages, looted and stole from Israeli communities, and more. Gallant also added that out of the 13,000 UNRWA employees in Gaza, at least 12 per cent are affiliated with the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror groups. ‘1,468 workers are known to be active in Hamas and PIJ, 185 UNRWA workers are active in the military branches of Hamas, and 51 are active in the PIJ military branch,’ he stated.
‘30 UNWRA teachers in a 3000-member UNWRA staff Telegram group explicitly cheered and celebrated Hamas’s 7 October massacre’
UNRWA recently confirmed that Muhammad Abu Attawi, a commander in Hamas’s Nukhba force, who is documented as having murdered civilians in the notorious bomb shelter attack near Re’im on 7 October and was one of its staff members, was killed by the IDF in Gaza. According to a report published by UN Watch, 30 UNWRA teachers in a 3000-member UNWRA staff Telegram group explicitly cheered and celebrated Hamas’s 7 October massacre while at the same time asking when their UNWRA salaries would be paid. In the group, UNWRA staff shared photos and video footage of the brutal acts of terrorists and prayed for the success of the terrorists and Israel’s destruction while violating UN rules. Since 2015, UN Watch has revealed over 150 Facebook pages of UNRWA staff that contain antisemitic content and incitement to jihadi terrorism, in clear violation of UN neutrality. UNRWA often responds to UN Watch’s research by discrediting the human rights organization and minimizing the issue, claiming it only involves a few bad apples. The UNRWA Telegram group highlighted in the report clearly undermines UNRWA’s denials and reveals the extent of its failure to address staff neutrality violations adequately.
Additionally, in February IDF forces discovered an underground data centre—complete with an electrical room, industrial battery power banks and living quarters for Hamas terrorists operating the computer server—beneath the UNRWA’s headquarters in Gaza City. The data centre was connected to the electricity supply in the UNRWA facility above.
Israel also accuses UNRWA of promoting hatred toward Israel and Jews and inciting violence against them, alleging that 10 per cent of senior educators belong to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Numerous reports have been issued regarding the extremism and incitement found in UNRWA’s educational curriculum.
International Reactions to Israel Banning UNWRA
The Israeli legislation passed on 28 October aimed at blocking the operations of the UNRWA Palestinian aid agency has sparked significant international repercussions, with major allies, including the US and the UK, strongly criticizing the measure, warning that it could have catastrophic consequences for Palestinians in Gaza.
They, along with numerous UN officials and agencies, have emphasized that UNRWA’s role in distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza and providing humanitarian aid services there means that severely hampering the organization, as the new laws do, could lead to dire humanitarian conditions for the civilian population in this war-torn region.
Sentiments following the passage of the law in Israel, however, were quite different, as evidenced by the overwhelming majorities with which the Knesset passed the bills, with supporters of the legislation pointing to evidence of Hamas’s infiltration of UNRWA, the participation of some UNRWA members in the 7 October atrocities, and the rampant incitement against Israel and Jews in UNRWA’s vast educational network.
What’s Left Out of International Media’s Coverage of the Israeli Ban
Action and Protection Foundation (TEV), a Jewish watchdog that monitors antisemitic incidents in Hungary, reported that international media failed to mention several facts when writing about the Israeli law banning UNWRA. These missed facts include not mentioning that those terrorists who murdered and raped Israelis on 7 October were all studying on the benches of UNRWA schools, and the curricula and textbooks used in these schools question the very existence of the State of Israel, incite open violence against Jews of all ages, and promote a narrative of resistance, demonizing Jews and Israel. According to the report, international media also failed to mention that the IDF has found terror tunnel passages under every UNRWA building, and the UN headquarters in Gaza housed Hamas' IT base, which used the UN's electrical system and internet. The report also highlighted that Israel has provided the UN with detailed files on some 500 Palestinian terrorists involved in the 7 October terrorist attack and handed over 3,000 files to the UN containing details of Hamas members who worked for UNRWA.
‘Jewish refugees displaced from the Middle East and North Africa haven’t received any help from the UN to resettle’
The TEV’s report also raised attention to the controversies around aiding Palestinian refugees. It notes that in 1949 the UN created UNRWA, the largest and only UN agency set up to deal exclusively with a single group of refugees, and 70 years later, it still exists and still refers to Palestinians, their children and grandchildren as 'refugees'. It highlighted that UNWRA has an annual budget of over a billion dollars, funded mainly by the US and the European Union. Palestinian refugee status is also passed down from generation to generation. UNRWA has not been able or willing to resettle a single refugee in seven decades, while many Palestinian refugees also have Western European citizenship, so they should not be called refugees in the first place. On the other hand, the report raised attention to the fact that Jewish refugees displaced from the Middle East and North Africa haven’t received any help from the UN to resettle and that it’s also not mentioned in Western public opinion that more than 850,000 Jews were expelled from the Middle East and North Africa after the Arab countries attacked Israel in 1948. These Jews lived for more than two thousand years in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, as well as in Muslim but non-Arab countries such as Turkey and Iran. Today, they make up more than half of Israel's Jewish population. The report pointed out that in Iraq in 1948, there were 150,000 Jews; today, there are fewer than 10; in Algeria, there were 140,000 Jews; today, there are fewer than 50; and in Egypt, there were 75,000 Jews; today, there are fewer than 20. As the report points out, these people were forced to leave behind their homes, their possessions, and their businesses, and arrived in Israel penniless; but most importantly, they did not remain refugees for long.
While the story of the forgotten Jewish refugees is little known, the longest-serving, best-funded and most celebrated refugees in the world are Palestinians. The report points out that the reason for that is purely political. After Israel gained its independence in May 1948, the surrounding Arab nations attacked the new Jewish state, and as a result, some 700,000 Arabs living in Israel fled. Many left because of the war, many because Arab leaders told them to leave the Jewish territories. Originally, the idea was that they would return when the Jews and their state were destroyed. Syrian Prime Minister Khalid al-Azm wrote in his memoirs: ‘Since 1948, we have been demanding the return of refugees. But it is we ourselves who have encouraged them to leave.’ Thus, the Arab, and later the Palestinian refugee crisis was born.
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