The Impact of Israel's UNRWA Ban on Peace: Is its Significance Overstated?

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With Israel’s ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) set to be implemented, questions remain about the impact of the ban and how other organisations might fill the gap in providing aid and education to the Palestinian Territories.

In October, Israel’s parliament — and also ban its staff from contacting Israeli officials, which experts argue will greatly inhibit its ability to deliver aid in war-torn Gaza.

UNRWA has argued that banning it from working with Israeli officials will “jeopardise peace” in Gaza, as it supplies 60 per cent of the aid to the embattled enclave.

However, the United States has backed Israel’s ban, which was tabled in the Knesset after nine UNRWA staff were alleged to have been involved in the 7 October, 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel, arguing the relief organisation is “exaggerating its role” in the Palestinian Territories.

Here’s what you need to know about UNRWA and Israel’s ban and how it could impact Palestinians as a holds after 15 months of conflict.

What does UNRWA do?

UNRWA was established by the UN in 1949 with the aim “to carry out direct relief and works programs for Palestine refugees”.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was established a year after the UNRWA started operations to address refugee issues on a global scale but the UNRWA retained sole responsibility for Palestinian refugees due to pressure from Arab states.

As a result, it is the only refugee agency in the world dedicated to a specific population.

UNRWA operates in 58 refugee camps across Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, with some 5.9 million Palestinian refugees eligible for their services.

It employs around 30,000 people in the Middle East and some 13,000 in the Gaza Strip, providing education, sanitation and health services.

This week, UNRWA commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini told the UN Security Council that since October 2023, the agency has delivered two-thirds of all food assistance, provided shelter to over a million displaced persons and vaccinated a quarter of a million children against polio.

An infographic illustrating the extent of aid provided by UNRWA to people in Gaza.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told the UN Security Council that since October 2023, the agency has provided two-thirds of all food assistance to people in the Gaza Strip. Source: SBS News

Since the ceasefire began this month, UNRWA has brought in 60 per cent of the food entering Gaza, reaching over half a million people, he said.

Lazzarini also said UNRWA conducts some 17,000 medical consultations on a daily basis.

Why has Israel banned UNRWA?

Israel regularly accuses the agency of anti-Israel bias and has also alleged its staff includes members of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that launched the . Israel has called for UNRWA’s responsibilities to be taken over by other UN bodies, such as its main refugee agency.

The UN rejects accusations of bias and says UNRWA’s expertise is irreplaceable, particularly in Gaza.

However, a UN investigation found nine UNRWA staff may have been involved in the Hamas attack.

The agency fired them but said Israel had not provided evidence of more widespread involvement by its staff.

The agency has long been a source of discomfort for successive Israeli governments that have considered it fundamentally hostile to Israel.

Israel says UNRWA’s continued existence decades after the 1948 war has consolidated the refugee status of generations of Palestinians, who now number in the millions, and has frozen the conflict in place.

A graphic representation showing UNRWA's presence in Gaza and the West Bank.

Israel argues that UNRWA’s existence since the 1948 war has solidified the refugee status of millions of Palestinians and has kept the conflict unresolved. Source: SBS News

In 2022, an Israeli watchdog reported UNRWA educational material taught students that Israel was trying to “erase Palestinian identity”.

The European Commission identified what it called “antisemitic material” in the schoolbooks, “including even incitement to violence”, and the European Parliament has repeatedly called European Union funding to the Palestinian Authority to be conditional on removing such content.

Dr Ran Porat, affiliate research associate at Monash University’s Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation who is an analyst on Israel and Middle Eastern Affairs, explained how UNRWA has influenced the demographic of the region.

He told SBS News UNRWA has been able to expand its operations by broadening the definition of a refugee to include the descendants of Palestinian refugees.

“That’s how we have, instead of 700,000, maybe a million Palestinians as refugees as a result of the 1948 and 1967 wars, we have more than five million today,” he said.

“UNRWA employs many Palestinians and became one with the fabric of Palestinian society. And what they teach is the centrality of being a refugee, the idea of the right of return. It’s above everything. You are a refugee.”

How will UNRWA ban impact Palestinians?

Emphasising the uncertainty that surrounds the agency, UNRWA spokesperson Jonathan Fowler said it wasn’t clear whether its staff passing through Israeli checkpoints across the West Bank could “be considered contact with the Israeli authorities” and, therefore, banned.

“We will continue everything we can while awaiting further details. We are not giving up,” Fowler said.

Lazzarini told a meeting of the UN Security Council: “The relentless assault on UNRWA is harming the lives and future of Palestinians across the occupied Palestinian territory.”

“It is eroding their trust in the international community, jeopardising any prospect for peace and security,” he said.

The ban would make it almost impossible for UNRWA to distribute aid to Gaza, and significantly hamper its operations in the West Bank, Porat said.

“They need to go in and out of Israel; they need to have coordination with their people and the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] that is in the West Bank and Gaza. So, it basically becomes almost impossible for UNRWA to operate,” he said.

Which other organisations will fill the gap?

Porat said in the West Bank, the municipality has plans to step in and run schools that have been run by UNRWA, and distribute aid.

He said in Gaza, UNRWA is being replaced by contractors and various Egyptian and US companies.

“There’s not going to be a huge drop in aid because the ceasefire included a dramatic increase in the number of trucks going into Gaza from 200, 300 days to sometimes 900,” he said.

“The question is not who delivers them. The question is what happens to them inside Gaza, and UNRWA was not able to provide any safety and security to the trucks going in.”

The US, under President Donald Trump, supports Israel’s “sovereign right” to close UNRWA’s offices in Jerusalem, acting US ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea told the Security Council.

“UNRWA exaggerating the effects of the laws and suggesting that they will force the entire humanitarian response to halt is irresponsible and dangerous.

“UNRWA is not and never has been the only option for providing humanitarian assistance in Gaza.”

— With additional reporting by Reuters, Agence France-Presse.