Israel’s veto on UN agency pushes Palestinians into the abyss of the worst phase of war. international

Life is at risk in Palestinian refugee camps like Shuafat in East Jerusalem. Despite the fact that the tents were left behind many years ago, giving way to bricks and half-built roads, an aura of temporality and disrepair remains. “It’s not easy living here,” Malak, 15, says with a smile this Tuesday. With several classmates, all in uniform, she negotiates the arrangement of concrete walls, fenced corridors and metal turnstiles that surround the grounds through which they return from school. This group of smiling girls seems to have emerged in the form of a book from the pages of the report with which Nathan Thrall won the Pulitzer Prize in 2024, A day in the life of Abed SalamaA portrait of the daily tragedy under which Palestinians of Jerusalem live.

Dozens of places like Shuafat have been converted into Jewish settlements throughout Palestine where the population awaits their right to return to the cities from which they were expelled in the process of the birth of Israel, which became a state in 1948. Went. Meanwhile, they remain largely dependent on the United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). But Israel has pushed it a little further into the abyss: the prohibition order approved in parliament this Monday weighs heavily on it. The measure has drawn criticism even in countries closest to the Jewish state. The consequences of this particular war that began during the last year, if not reversed, will pose a new obstacle to the United Nations and another burden on the survival of the Palestinians, as people have anticipated.

“UNRWA is irreplaceable,” says Jonathan Fowler, the entity’s spokesman in Jerusalem, emphasizing that it is the main support for the most vulnerable populations in Gaza, which is facing the largest humanitarian crisis in its history due to the Israeli blockade. Is. Contrary to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration, Fowler considers it unlikely that in the three months that the embargo must be implemented, anyone will be able to design an alternative system to the one that UNRWA, together with other UN agencies, has inseparable from. Makes. Joint. Without the refugee agency, “it is operationally impossible for the rest of the UN system to take immediate action.” However, this is the plan employed by Israel, as explained by the Foreign Ministry citing agencies such as UNICEF, the World Health Organization or the World Food Programme.

Fowler confirmed that before the UN, the main victims of Israel’s decision will be Gazans – more than 43,000 people have already died – who are the main target of its activities. And even more so in a competition with an uncertain ending.

Although he prefers to talk conditionally, the agency spokesman sees significant obstacles to the Israeli plan moving forward. For example, they depend on the Israeli port of Ashdod for unloading humanitarian aid, on the Foreign Ministry for visas and permits, on meetings with the administration to coordinate their activities in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, or on anything else. Are. Permits are being allowed to pass through military control every day. The list is long. “The policy of no contact could be extremely severe,” he warns, referring to the new law sanctioning relations between the Israeli administration and the UN agency due to denial of contact.

The United States believes Israel is not confronting the “catastrophic humanitarian crisis” arising in Gaza with its words and actions and “this must change immediately,” said the US representative to the UN. Linda Thomas-Greenfield claims. On October 13, Washington had already sent a letter to Israel warning that it could restrict military support if it did not allow aid to enter the Palestinian territory. He gave him one month’s time.

“Lack of viable alternatives”

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini believes the new Israeli law jeopardizes aid to Palestinians, whose suffering will be exacerbated by “the lack of a viable alternative to the agency”. Amidst the controversy, Norway is going to propose in the General Assembly to seek opinion from the International Court to find out whether Israel has violated international law through this new law. Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon has asserted: UNRWA is “a terrorist initiative disguised as a humanitarian agency initiative.”

The decision, which was taken by the majority of MPs from both the government coalition and the opposition, could have a direct consequence that thousands of Palestinians will be left without their most basic needs, Aviv Tatarsky said by phone with Ir Amin. Israeli NGO that condemns human rights abuses under occupation. He added, “Israel will not do this and will prevent UNRWA from doing so.”

For Israel, Tatarsky says, it symbolizes UN agency aid to Palestinians and the right of return of refugees and the new law means, “amid the atrocities in Gaza”, that Israel wants “a new situation”. A source familiar with UNRWA’s work says covering the Palestinian refugee agency’s more than seven decades of experience with private, paramilitary or security companies almost immediately is not seen as being within reach.

Among street vendors of fruits and vegetables and children on bicycles, Ahmed Abed, a 40-year-old dentist born in Shuafat, is clear that the new Israeli measure of pressure on the UN is “not good news.” His family is originally from Modi’in, an Israeli city between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv today. As he describes the events of the past decades, he is surrounded by some neighbors who address him as “Doctor”. There were approximately 16,400 refugees registered by the United Nations in the camp in 2023, which is much less than the population actually living there. Real estate, fiscal and bureaucratic pressures, along with Judaization policies, lead many Palestinians in Jerusalem to seek housing in cheaper areas such as Shuafat, where, at the same time, services and living standards are much more precarious.

Fowler also mentions the possible consequences of new Israeli rules in “an area of ​​high political tension, social tension, economic difficulties”, where UNRWA “has been a relative guarantor of stability.” “If they destroy us and our services, what will happen to a depressed and neglected population? This is not an ideal recipe for social peace. And its consequences in an area like this could have a chain effect,” he predicts from an office at UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem, which has been attacked several times by Israeli radicals and is located on land in occupied Jerusalem where the city The council intends to develop more than 1,000 homes for Jewish residents in the city, all part of a wider “campaign” that the UN agency has been trying for months to eliminate, the authorities recall. Which has lost 220 of its 13,000 employees in Gaza in the year of war.

He believes that accusing UNRWA of “terrorism” and being an ally of Hamas is also part of the same campaign. The agency has fired nine of its 13,000 staff so far after the Jewish state pointed it out, leading the UN to demand more evidence. “I am not minimizing the nature of the allegations, but those nine represent 0.04% or less. And yet, some people say, that means everyone,” Fowler defends.

UNRWA, which has 30,000 staff, operates under a mandate of the UN General Assembly that is renewed every three years since 1949 and provides education, health and social services to more than two million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank and the East. Provides for Jerusalem, as well as in Jordan (two million), Syria (530,000) and Lebanon (460,000). Fowler elaborated, saying that Israel is trying to impose changes on something decided in the assembly and also on the territory it illegally occupies.

“I love Hamas,” a seven- or eight-year-old boy in Shuafat shouts provocatively. He chases her with other friends shouting Jewish (Hebrew), which attracts the attention of a shopkeeper who comes out to verify that the foreigner is indeed a journalist and not an intruder. Upon leaving the refugee camp, the reporter awaits a brief interrogation at the metal detector by border police. Yes, border agents are inside the city of Jerusalem, beneath the wall that separates Palestinians from Israelis.