Israel’s parliament is considering cutting ties with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, a move that could cripple the distribution of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. It is the culmination of a long-running campaign against the agency, which Israel claims was infiltrated by Hamas. But supporters say Israel’s real goal is to sidestep the Palestinian refugee issue.

The agency, known as UNRWA, is the main provider and distributor of aid in Gaza and provides education, health and other basic services to millions of Palestinian refugees in the region, including in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“If it passes and if it’s implemented, it’s a disaster,” said Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications. “UNRWA is the largest humanitarian organization in Gaza… Who can do its job?”

Israel accuses the agency of turning a blind eye to staff it says belong to Hamas, embezzling aid and using UNRWA facilities for military purposes. Israel says about a dozen of its 13,000 personnel in Gaza participated in the October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel. The agency denies knowingly aiding armed groups and says it is moving quickly to remove any suspected militants from its staff.

The bills would largely shut down UNRWA in the Palestinian territories

The two bills, which have broad support in Israel, would sever Israeli ties to UNRWA and revoke legal immunities long held by UNRWA staff in Israel. They would effectively bar the agency from operating in Israel and the Palestinian territories because Israel controls access to both Gaza and the West Bank. It could force the agency to move its headquarters from Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.

If passed, the bills would take effect 60 to 90 days after Israel’s Foreign Ministry notifies the UN, according to a spokesman for lawmaker Dan Illouz, one of the co-sponsors.

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UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini warned earlier this month that humanitarian operations in Gaza “may disintegrate” if the legislation is passed, disrupting the provision of food, shelter and healthcare as winter approaches.

Gaza’s population of about 2.3 million is almost entirely dependent on aid to survive. About 90% of the population was displaced. Hundreds of thousands live in tent camps and schools converted into shelters, most of them run by UNRWA. Experts say hunger is widespread. Israel’s campaign in Gaza in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attack has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, whose number does not distinguish between civilians and militants.

Israel is reportedly considering taking over the distribution of aid itself or subcontracting it, but has yet to present a concrete plan. Any such effort would likely require large numbers of troops and other resources at a time when Israel is at war on two fronts in Gaza and Lebanon.

Other UN agencies and aid groups say there is no substitute for UNRWA, which also runs 96 schools housing some 47,000 students, three vocational training centers and 43 health centers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

A decades-old mission rooted in the bitter history of conflict

The UN agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East was established to help the approximately 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were driven from what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.

Supporters of UNRWA say Israel hopes to erase the Palestinian refugee problem by dismantling the agency. Israel says the refugees should be permanently resettled in other countries, and Israeli opponents of the agency have suggested ending UNRWA services would force them to do so.

Palestinians say the refugees and their descendants, who now number nearly 6 million, should be allowed to exercise their right under international law to return home. Israel refuses, saying the result would be a Palestinian majority within its borders.

The issue was among the thorniest in the peace process, which stalled in 2009.

UNRWA operates schools, health clinics, infrastructure projects and aid programs in refugee camps that have developed in urban neighborhoods in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

A long-standing dispute over UNRWA’s neutrality

Israel says hundreds of Palestinian militants work for UNRWA, without providing evidence, and that more than a dozen staff took part in the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

UNRWA immediately fired staff accused of taking part in the October 7 attack, in which Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people and kidnapped around 250.

An independent investigation earlier this year found that UNRWA had “robust” mechanisms to ensure its neutrality, but highlighted gaps in implementation, including staff expressing political views publicly and textbooks with “problematic content” in UNRWA-run schools .

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UNRWA says it thoroughly investigates any allegations of wrongdoing and holds staff accountable, and provides lists of all its staff to Israel and host countries. It says Israel has largely ignored its requests to provide evidence for its claims against the employees.

Israel has repeatedly struck UN schools turned into shelters, claiming that Hamas fighters are operating inside them. It also says it has discovered tunnels running near or under UNRWA facilities.

UNRWA has long been the largest single employer in Gaza, where the population has been impoverished by years of Israeli and Egyptian blockades. Hamas has ruled the territory since 2007 and has civilian political operations alongside its military wing.

The militant wings of Hamas and other groups are highly secretive, their members virtually unknown outside of intelligence agencies. This complicates efforts by civilian organizations to vet employees.

Fatah Sharif, a UNRWA teacher in southern Lebanon, was killed last month along with his family in an Israeli airstrike. It then emerged that he was a senior Hamas commander, something he had kept secret.

Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, said Sharif was suspended without pay in March after the agency learned he belonged to the Hamas political party and an investigation was launched. He said he did not know that Sharif was a militant commander until after his death.

UNRWA has strong international support

Several Western countries suspended funding for UNRWA after the allegations related to the October 7 attack. All but the United States, which had been its largest donor, have since restored it.

The Biden administration recently warned Israel that if it did not allow more aid into Gaza, it could lose some of the crucial US military assistance it has relied on throughout the war.

The letter sent by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to their Israeli counterparts said they shared Israeli concerns about the “serious allegations” of UNRWA staff who participated in the October 7 attack and that “Hamas misused UNRWA facilities.” .

But it said passing the bill’s restrictions “would devastate the humanitarian response in Gaza at this critical time … which could have implications for relevant US legislation and policy.”

A joint statement from Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Britain last week expressed “serious concern” about the legislation. It said the agency provides “essential and life-saving humanitarian aid”, the delivery of which would be “severely hampered, if not impossible” without it.