The Knesset will decide this Monday whether to suspend UNRWA activities in Israel

Germany, France and the United Kingdom ask the Israeli Parliament not to approve the regulations

Oct. 27 () –

The foreign ministers of seven countries, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and Canada, have in unison asked the Israeli Parliament not to approve the bill to suspend the activities of the agency in the country. United Nations for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).

The Knesset is scheduled to meet tomorrow to approve, almost certainly, a regulation whose objective “is to abolish the privileges and immunities” of UNRWA, “preventing any contact with Israeli officials and prohibiting their presence within the occupied territories,” the signatories understand.

Therefore, the ministers urge “to preserve the privileges and immunities of UNRWA to fulfill its responsibility to facilitate the complete, rapid, secure and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid.”

The bill, promoted by deputies Yulia Malinovsky, Dan Illouz and Boaz Bismuth — the first from Yisrael Beytenu and the other two from the main party of the far-right governing coalition in Israel, the Likud — would effectively prevent the organization from operating on Israeli territory by revoking a 1967 text that served as the basis for its activities.

The government coalition has 68 seats in the chamber and hopes to approve the law without problems given that several opposition deputies have declared their approval of this regulation.

A few weeks ago, the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, also asked the Israeli Parliament to annul the procedure and reminded Israel of the unprecedented phenomenon that would result from the banning of the local activities of a UN agency by a state. member.

Israel, on the other hand, has argued for years that UNRWA is an inoperative agency and, since the outbreak of the Gaza war, complicit with the Palestinian Hamas militias in their attacks on the country. Malinovsky herself denounced, during the presentation of the bill, that the agency “should not even exist” and even accompanied her proposal with a request to declare UNRWA a terrorist organization, which was ultimately rejected.

Last March, Israel accused “a significant number” of UNRWA workers of “being members of terrorist organizations,” which led 16 countries to suspend or freeze funds, suddenly depriving this organization of $450 million and casting doubt on the continuity of its operations.

However, in mid-April, the external investigation led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna ruled out that the Israeli authorities provided evidence to support the alleged terrorist links attributed to several UNRWA employees.