RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The head of the UN agency dealing with Palestinian refugees said Wednesday that recently passed Israeli laws effectively banning his activities in Israel will leave a vacuum that will cost more lives and create further instability in Gaza and the West Bank.

Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agencyor UNRWA, told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview — the first since the laws were passed — that the legislation is “ultimately against the Palestinians themselves,” effectively denying them a functioning provider of life-saving services, education and medical care.

UNRWA has been the main agency procuring and distributing aid in the Gaza Strip, where almost the entire population of about 2.3 million Palestinians rely on the agency for survival in close proximity to Israel. 13-month-old war with the militant group Hamas.

Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering in UNRWA-run schools. Other aid groups say the agency’s strong, decades-old infrastructure in Gaza is irreplaceable. So far, Israel has presented no plan to provide food, medicine and other supplies to the people of Gaza in the absence of UNRWA.

Israel claims that Hamas and other militants have infiltrated UNRWA, using its facilities and taking aid – claims for which it has provided little evidence. The laws, passed by parliament this week, cut all ties with UNRWA and ban its operations in Israel.

And since the agency’s operations in Gaza and the West Bank must go through Israeli authorities, the laws threaten to shut down its activities there as well. The laws are expected to take effect in three months.

If the Israeli decision is implemented “it would be a total disaster, it’s like throwing out the baby with the bathwater,” Lazzarini told the AP, speaking in the Saudi capital Riyadh, where he is attending a conference to discuss the Conflict in Middle east.

“This would create a vacuum. It would also fuel more instability in the West Bank and Gaza,” he said. “Ending UNRWA’s activities in the three months would also mean that more people would die in Gaza.”

He said the agency is looking for “creative ways to keep us operating.” He appealed for support from the UN General Assembly and donors to continue providing services and called on Israel to reverse the decision or extend the three-month grace period. said Israel had not formally communicated with the agency after the laws were passed.

For decades, UNRWA has operated networks of schools, medical facilities and other services around Gaza and the West Bank – as well as in neighboring Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. In Gaza in particular, it plays a major role in maintaining social services and the economy, as the territory’s largest single employer and the source of education and health care for much of the population.

The laws threaten to shut down all of these operations, impacting the education and well-being of hundreds of thousands of children well into the future, he said.

“Today we have 1 in 2 people in Gaza under the age of 18, including 650,000 girls and boys living in rubble, deeply traumatized at primary and secondary school age,” he said. “Getting rid of UNRWA is also a way of telling these children that you will have no future. We are only sacrificing your education. Education is the one thing that has never been taken away from the Palestinians.”

UNRWA was established to help the approximately 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding the creation of Israel. It now provides support to refugees and their descendants, who number around 6 million in the region.

Lazzarini said the Israeli laws were “years of attack against the agency.” He said “the goal is to get the Palestinians out of refugee status.”

International law gives Palestinian refugees and their descendants the right to return to their homes. Israel refused to allow them to return, saying it would end the country’s Jewish majority. Israel has said refugees should be taken in by their host countries, and officials often say UNRWA services are keeping Palestinians’ hopes of return alive.

In a letter to the UN, Lazzarini said the Israeli laws and campaign against the agency “will not end the Palestinian refugee status, which exists independently of UNRWA services, but will seriously damage their lives and futures.”

Israel claims 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 on Israel that sparked the latest war.

The UN fired nine staff after internal investigations found they may have participated in the attack. UNRWA has nearly 30,000 staff in the region, including 13,000 in Gaza, most of them Palestinians. Israel also says Hamas fighters are operating in UNRWA schools and other facilities in Gaza – and has hit many of them with airstrikes.

UNRWA denies knowingly aiding armed groups and says it is moving quickly to purge any suspected militants from its ranks.

Lazzarini said Israel did not respond to questions from UNRWA for details on other allegations, including that the agency’s headquarters are being used by militant groups. As the fighting continued, the agency could not verify the claims, he said, and called for an independent body. investigate.

At least 237 UNRWA staff have been killed in the Gaza war, a toll among UN personnel not seen in any other conflict. More than 200 UNRWA facilities were damaged or destroyed, killing more than 560 people sheltering there.

Lazzarini spoke on the sidelines of a conference organized by the Global Alliance for a Two-State Solution, an initiative created by the Saudi government attended by foreign ministers from Arab, Muslim, African and European countries.

“If we want to be successful in any future political transition, we need an agency like UNRWA to deal with education and primary health care for Palestinian refugees” until there is a viable state or administration in place, he said .

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El Deeb reported from Beirut.