Gaza school hit by deadly Israeli strike; Blinken urges ceasefire
This is the aftermath of a deadly Israeli strike on a school in Gaza Thursday. More than a dozen people were killed, including children, according to a local hospital.
Israel banned UNRWA, the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee relief agency, from operating in Israel on Monday after the agency admitted nine of its workers participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, in a move the U.N. said could have a catastrophic impact.
“UNRWA workers involved in terrorist activities against Israel must be held accountable,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
UNRWA, the primary humanitarian organization operating within the Gaza Strip and other Palestinian territories, services around 5.9 million Palestinian refugees with humanitarian aid and other services. Amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza, the organization now runs the enclave’s schools, healthcare system, social services, and distributes humanitarian aid.
Two bills passed in Israel’s Knesset on Monday would bar the organization from Israeli territory and ban Israeli officials from having any contact with it.
Although Israeli territory does not technically include Gaza and the West Bank, the legislation would still make it virtually impossible for UNRWA to operate in both territories, since Jerusalem would not allow entrance permits to the agency’s workers, the Times of Israel reported.
It would also prevent coordination with Israel’s Defense Forces, which is essential to the organization’s operations.
The law would force the closure of UNRWA’s office in East Jerusalem and prevent its staff from obtaining visas, according to Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard.
“It amounts to the criminalization of humanitarian aid and will worsen an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis,” Callamard said.
Two Hamas commanders killed in recent months were on UNRWA’s payroll, the agency confirmed.
Israel’s military said it killed Mohammad Abu Itiwi, a Hamas commander it said participated in the Hamas attack, in a strike on Gaza last week. The U.N. confirmed that it employed Itiwi.
Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, who was killed along with family members in an airstrike on southern Lebanon late last month, was placed on leave from his post with the agency months before over concerns about his Hamas allegiance, UNRWA commissioner Philippe Lazzarini told reporters.
An investigation by the U.N. in response to accusations from Netanyahu and other Israeli lawmakers found that nine of the organization’s workers were involved in the attack last October, when Hamas fighters overran Gaza’s border, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking more than 200 hostage. The nine workers were fired, the U.N. said.
“If the United Nations is not willing to clean this organization from terrorism, from Hamas activists, then we have to take measures to make sure that they cannot harm our people ever again,” Sharren Haskel, a supportive Israeli lawmaker, said.
Laws could trigger ‘collapse’ of Gaza’s humanitarian system
The U.N. said the end of UNRWA’s work in Israeli territory could devastate a refugee population already at imminent risk of famine and disease.
A ban on UNRWA’s work would amount to “the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza,” James Elder, a spokesperson for the U.N.’s children’s fund, said. “A decision such as this suddenly means that a new way has been found to kill children.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he feared the legislation would have “devastating consequences” for refugees throughout Palestinian territories including the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
“UNRWA is the principal means by which essential assistance is supplied to Palestine refugees in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” he said in a statement. “There is no alternative to UNRWA.”
US ‘deeply concerned’
The legislation prompted concern from governments around the world as alarm grows that the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza is not enough.
More than a year after Israel launched its attack on Gaza in response to the Hamas attack, killing more than 42,000 people, the entire population is at risk of famine, and ten times more Palestinians are now suffering from acute malnutrition than before the war, local authorities and relief organizations say.
“UNRWA plays a critical, important role in delivering humanitarian assistance to civilians that need it in Gaza,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
The war has had a significant impact on UNRWA’s operations, with 233 of its employees killed and 190 of its buildings damaged, according to the agency. Only seven of its 27 health centers were operational as of Friday.
Jabalia, Gaza’s largest refugee camp, has become a major target of Israel’s attacks – around 900 people have been killed in the camp and surrounding towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun in recent weeks, and around 100,000 people in the area are cut off from medical and food supplies, according to the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service.
The ban could also impede an ongoing effort to vaccinate Palestinian children against polio. UNRWA’s 1,000 health care workers in Gaza made up around a third of those working on the campaign, according to Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization.
UNRWA was established in 1949 to support Palestinians displaced during Israel’s 1948 war of independence, when fighting broke out between newly-established Israel and five of its neighbors in the region.
Contributing: Reuters
