The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is now in a full and very public international diplomatic fight with the Israeli government, as well as the United States and new Trump administration.
Israel has just announced that it will cut all contact with UNRWA and any other body acting on its behalf. The UN envoy for the organization was the first to reveal the Israeli statement. The UN has also said that Washington is supportive of Israel's new ban.
But at a moment some 300,000 Palestinians have returned to their homes in largely destroyed northern Gaza, as videos have demonstrated, the UNRWA has said Israel’s impending ban on the agency is "harming the lives and future of Palestinians" and could serve to thwart the ongoing ceasefire agreement with Hamas as the change is "jeopardizing any prospect for peace and security."
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is demanding that Israel retract its order for the relief agency to leave its main office in Jerusalem.
"I regret this decision and request that the Government of Israel retract it," he wrote in a letter issued Monday, underscoring the "irreplaceable nature". The UN also doesn't recognize Israel's longtime claims of sovereignty over East Jerusalem where the UNRWA office is headquartered.
Like other local or regional UN relief agency offices, the UNRWA recruits from the local population, meaning that in Gaza and the West Bank, its local staffers are made up mostly of Palestinians.
Israel has in turn repeatedly accused these local UNRWA staff members of cooperating or being in cahoots with Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists. There have even been allegations of UNRWA members of having foreknowledge of the Oct.7 terror attacks on southern Israel.
Israel has further provided Washington with a dossier and what it says is clear evidence of UNRWA and Hamas cooperation, which the UN agency has rejected.
President Trump and Republicans, as well as conservative US media like Fox, have tended to echo the Israeli accusations that the UN agency is tainted and is not an impartial humanitarian actor on the ground.
Trump has also been floating a controversial plan to 'clean out' the Gaza Strip, arguing that its infrastructure is already destroyed and that Palestinians should go elsewhere. According to his latest remarks:
Donald Trump has repeated his suggestion that large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza for Egypt or Jordan, despite widespread opposition to the proposal from Palestinian leadership, the UN and US allies in the region.
Speaking to reporters onboard Air Force One on Monday night, the US president was asked about his comments over the weekend about “cleaning out” the Gaza Strip either “temporarily or long-term”. Trump reiterated he would “like to get [Palestinians from Gaza] living in an area where they can live without disruption and revolution and violence so much”.
The remarks, apparently at odds with existing US policy and international law, have been widely rejected by the Arab world as a potentially fatal blow to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but were embraced by Israel’s right wing.
"60% of the food that has come into #Gaza since the start of the #ceasefire has come in with UNRWA." tells @TamaraAlrifai to @AJEnglish.
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) January 27, 2025
The success of the ceasefire will hang in the balance if UNRWA is unable to operate beyond the end of January. The implementation of the ban… pic.twitter.com/DZ2xKusAz2
This is music to the ears of Israeli hardliners, who openly boast that their position is Israel should annex the Gaza Strip and begin building Jewish settlements and condominiums along the beach.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has confirmed that Trump has invited the Israeli leader for a meeting at the White House set for next Tuesday, February 4.
