Hamas will release eight new hostages on the day when Unrwa becomes illegal in Israel

The first phase of the Alto El Fuego agreement advances and Hamas will release 2 Israeli civilians, Arbel Yehud, 29, and Gadi Mozes, 80, and the woman soldier Agam Berfer, from 19. Next to the 3 Israelis Also from the 5 Thai civilians, all of them workers from the agricultural communities that surround Gaza, kidnapped on October 7. The Islamists delivered the list with the names to Israel, who proceeded to inform the families and must soon announce the relationship of prisoners that he will take out of jail. On Saturday a new day of exchange will be lived again.

The liberation of hostages is Israel’s priority, while for Hamas one of the key points of this first phase was the return of civilians to the north. More than 500,000 people have returned and what they have found in most cases is the absolute destruction of entire neighborhoods that do not recognize.

UNRWA, terrorist organization

In this moment of maximum need for the two million inhabitants of the Strip, the law approved in October by the Parliament of Israel against the work of Unrwa enters into force. The law prohibits the activities of the agency in Israel and Jerusalem East, area of ​​the Holy City occupied since 1967, and any type of relationship between Israeli institutions and an UN agency that they accuse of collaborating with Hamas and qualify as “ terrorist organization ». From the technical point of view, this law does not prohibit the work of the agency in Gaza and the West Bank. But at the practical level, it does so that the big problem is that these are occupied territories in which access and movements depend on coordination with Israeli occupation forces.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbascondemned the Knesset decision and described it as «unacceptable “and provocation” To the Palestinian people. Abu Rudeineh accused the Israelis of trying to suppress the “right to return” of the Palestinians and “liquidate” the question of the Palestinian refugees.

The pressure of the international community had no effect in Israel, which obtained the unconditional support of the United States. Dorothy SheaUnited States interim business manager for the UN, declared before the Security Council that the United States “supports the implementation” of the law. In Shea’s opinion «that Unrwa exaggerates the effects of laws and suggests that they will force the entire humanitarian response is irresponsible and dangerous. What is needed is a nuanced debate on how we can guarantee that the delivery of humanitarian aid and essential supplies is not interrupted ». For the United States representative before the UN, Unrwa is not “the only option to provide humanitarian assistance in Gaza” and accused the “terrorist links.”

Neither Israel, nor the United States have put on the table at the moment an alternative to the work carried out by the agency, the most important organization on the field in the strip. The blow to Unrwa can be double because Americans are their main financier and, as they already did in Trump’s first mandate, they can soon cut their donations to an agency with 75 years of history that is key in the sectors of education and health of refugees.