Israel on Monday is expected to pass laws that would bar UNRWA — the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees — from operating in its borders and curtail its humanitarian activities in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
One of the bills would revoke a 1967 agreement signed by Israeli officials that provided the legal basis for UNRWA’s activities, The Times of Israel reported Friday.
It would be nearly impossible for UNRWA’s work to continue in Gaza or the West Bank without Israel’s approval because Jerusalem controls all access points to the Palestinian enclaves. Troops with the Israel Defense Forces also patrol the Philadelphi Corridor, a strip of land along the border between Gaza and Egypt.
The expected approval of the legislation in the Knesset — Israel’s parliament — follows reports that an UNRWA staffer identified as Muhammad Abu Attawi who was killed in a recent Israeli airstrike was a senior Hamas leader involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, rampage that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
“This agency employs hundreds of Hamas operatives and routinely allows its facilities to be used as command centers and weapons depots,” said Israeli lawmaker Dan Illouz, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party. “It educates Palestinian youth to hate, fueling a dangerous cycle of violence that obstructs any path to peace.”
The Biden administration this month warned Israel it must implement “significant improvements” to the humanitarian situation in Gaza or risk jeopardizing the supply of U.S. weapons.
In a letter to their Israeli counterparts, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said enacting restrictions on UNRWA’s activities “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.”
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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