LONDON, (PIC)
“Worsening relations between the United Nations and Israel appear to have reached a nadir with the imminent passage of a bill in the Israeli Knesset designed to make it impossible for the UN relief and works agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) to operate in Gaza and West Bank,” the British newspaper The Guardian said in a report for its Diplomatic Editor Patrick Wintour on Friday.
He added, “UNRWA has long been a target of Israel, predating its claims that up to 12 members of the group’s staff took part in the 7 October attacks , but the move to ban the agency altogether signals a fresh polarization that may take years to reverse.”
Wintour warned, “The consequences of a major US ally in the Middle East being largely contemptuous of the UN and the international legal institutions it upholds are likely to be long-lasting and profound.”
“In a sign of support for the bills, the former defense minister Benny Gantz accused UNRWA of choosing to make itself an inseparable component of Hamas’s mechanism – and now is the time to detach ourselves entirely from it … Instead of fulfilling its purpose and improving the lives of refugees, UNRWA does the opposite and perpetuates their victimization,” the writer elaborated.
He added, “The west has had doubts about aspects of UNRWA’s neutrality but still sees it as the best body available to deliver aid, education and health to Palestinians. If the Knesset succeeds in shutting down the organization, the question of how to channel aid to 2.4 million people in Gaza and the West Bank will become acute.”
“The crisis is imminent. Two bills passed on 6 October by the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defense committee will probably go to the Knesset plenum by 28 October, according to Adalah, a legal center for Arab minority rights in Israel. The measures look to have a cross-party majority of about 100 of the 120 members,” Wintour noted.
“Although the plan has been condemned widely – including by ambassadors from 123 member states – it is probably only Washington that can persuade Israel to rethink. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, issued a joint letter warning that enacting such restrictions would devastate the humanitarian response in Gaza at this critical moment and deny essential educational and social services to tens of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem,” according to the writer.
