Israel’s new disdain for the UN. This Monday, October 28, the Israeli Parliament – Knesset – approved a law that prevents the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, from carrying out its activities in East Jerusalem. This contravenes the United Nations International Convention through which UNRWA was founded, and to which Israel is a party.
The measures have been approved by 92 votes in favor – of the 120 that make up the Knesset –, of which 61 votes come from the coalition that governs the country since the end of 2022, and which brings together several center-right and extreme right parties led by Benjamin Netanyahu, Likud leader and Prime Minister of Israel. Next to him sit the deputies of Shas, with 11 seats, Religious Zionism, with seven seats, Yahadut HaTorah, with another seven seats and Otzma Yehudit, with six deputies. The Cabinet is completed by four deputies from National Unity and a deputy from the ultra-Orthodox Noam formation.
The rest of the support has been given by parties belonging to the opposition. This reflects the consensus generated by the opposition to UNRWA within the most radical Zionism. In fact, both laws were drafted by the Likud and the Yisrael Beytenu opposition party, with a Zionist, conservative and secular profile. When presenting the bill, Yulia Malinovskyan opposition party lawmaker, stated that UNRWA “should not exist.” As collected Europa PressMalinovsky also proposed declaring UNRWA a “terrorist organization”, a measure that was ultimately rejected.
Only ten parliamentarians, belonging to Hadash-Ta’al, a left-wing party, whose voters are mostly Arab-Israelis, have voted against this law. The current Parliament is the one with the least representation of the left in its history, with four deputies from the Labor Party and five from Hadash-Ta’al.
The relationship between Tel Aviv and UNRWA was never easyRaquel Martí, director of the UN agency in Spain, explained to Público. The mere existence of the organization is a constant reminder that Israel has not fulfilled any of the measures to which it committed, as a member of the UN, 75 years ago.. Also, that the organization’s Security Council has not forced it to do so.
The main objective of UNRWA’s mission was to protect Palestinian refugees until they could return to their homes. But not only has this not happened, but the colonial expansion of the Zionist State has only generated new refugees. UNRWA’s initial mandate, created in 1949, was to have ended just a year later. Its existence, however, has been consecutively extended since then.
The measures approved by the Zionist Parliament have three highly impactful consequences. Firstly, they put in check the survival of the 21,917 Palestinians residing in the two UNRWA refugee camps in East Jerusalem: Shufat and Kalandia. Secondly, by legislating on a territory that, as stated in several UN resolutions, is not Israel’s, it consolidates the illegal annexation of the territory to the Zionist State.
Finally, they demonstrate the contempt of the majority of the Israeli parliament for international law, as well as the enormous impunity with which it operates by ignoring the requests of several UN member countries not to approve said laws. Among others, its faithful European ally, Germany. But, above all, this movement leaves many doubts in the air. For example, what will happen to the Palestinian refugees in this territory? Will they be taken care of, expelled or nationalized? Does the Netanyahu Government have more measures planned? In any case, the objective seems clear: dismantle UNRWA.
Kalandia and Shufat: camps in East Jerusalem
UNRWA operates 49 Palestinian refugee camps: nine in Syria, 10 in Jordan, 12 in Lebanon, eight in the Gaza Strip and 19 in the West Bank. One of the first to appear was Kalandia, in East Jerusalem. It happened in 1949, with the arrival of Palestinians from all over the West Bank who had been expelled from 52 towns spread throughout the region after the declaration of the State of Israel a year earlier. In 1950, UNRWA began its activity in that territory.
Currently, Kalandia has four schools and 1,152 studentsin addition to a health center. All of them are managed by the UN Agency, which also offers social services for patients with non-communicable diseases. It also provides infrastructure to Shufat, the other refugee camp in Jerusalem. Unlike those in Kalandia, the inhabitants of this settlement have special conditions, since they have Jerusalem identity cards. This gives them greater freedom of movement than other Palestinian refugees in the West Bank have, and allows them to access certain social services.
In any case, living conditions in the camp remain precarious, which is why UNRWA also operates there. Therefore, by restricting their access to these camps, not only the arrival of humanitarian aid is endangered, but also the maintenance of the educational, health and social services system provided by the Agency in them. “We are the only organization that provides education to thousands of refugee boys and girls in the occupied Palestinian territory,” UNRWA director Raquel Martí explained to Público. Their question now is what will happen to them. For the moment, it has not been revealed in whose hands the management of these fields will remain. Taking other refugee camps as a reference, previously attended by the Agency, is not very encouraging.
Refugee camps, military objectives
Since October 7, Palestinian refugee camps have suffered significant losses at the hands of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Especially those from the Gaza Strip. The latest attacks that occurred in the Yabalia camp have left around 150 dead.
The siege of the Strip has also led to the creation of improvised camps for displaced people, which have also been systematically attacked. One of them left one of the harshest images of the conflict. It happened on May 27 in the northwest of Rafah, when some displaced Palestinians recorded the scenes of the fire set in a field after the Israeli bombing. In the middle of the crowd, a man held the decapitated body of a girl who had died in the attack. The Government of Israel declared that this had been a “terrible mistake.”
However, with the aim of eliminating “Hamas members,” it has continued to use “high-tonnage bombs knowing that it is a densely populated area,” Martí denounced at the Migration Journalism Congress that took place in Mérida at the beginning of October. .
The attacks have become even more ferocious since it became public in January this year that some UNRWA workers in the Gaza Strip may have been involved in the 7-O attacks. Following the accusations, UNRWA commissioned a review of its neutrality mechanisms, dismissed the workers, and were subjected to an independent UN investigation.
Israel refused to hand over evidence to carry out this investigation, so investigators were able to verify whether Agency workers were involved. That is to say, to this day UNRWA cannot deny or confirm whether the events took place as Israel denounces.
For the most extremist sectors of Israeli society, the investigations were not enough. On May 10, the UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem was attacked by a mob of people who tried to set it on fire, forcing its workers to be moved.
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