Today, Wednesday, the Knesset General Assembly approved, in preliminary reading, a draft law requiring Israel to declare the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees - UNRWA, a “terrorist organization,” with the support of 42 Knesset members and the opposition of six.

The draft law stipulates that the “Anti-Terrorism Law” applies to the United Nations Agency UNRWA, stops all communications and relations between Israel and its citizens and UNRWA, and closes the agency’s offices in Israel. The provisions of the Penal Code that apply to “terrorist organizations” will also apply to the UN agency.

The bill was presented by Knesset Member Yulia Milinovsky, from the Yisrael Beytenu party.

The head of this party, Avigdor Lieberman, said that “UNRWA is a terrorist organization,” claiming that “it has become clearer today than in the past that UNRWA, which helped kill, kidnap and rape Jews in the October 7 attack, does not help refugees, but rather terrorist organizations in Gaza Strip only.

Israel claimed that UNRWA employees participated in the “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack, but did not provide evidence of this. Countries that cut their funding to UNRWA in the wake of the Israeli allegations also retreated and returned to funding the agency.

An independent review of UNRWA's performance concluded that there was "no alternative" to the agency, stressing that Israel had not provided evidence of allegations that agency employees were linked to Hamas or their affiliation to resistance factions in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Foreign Ministry commented on the report by claiming that it lacked a "real and comprehensive examination."

The review, whose committee was headed by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, commissioned by the United Nations and with the participation of three research institutes, confirmed that “UNRWA regularly provided Israel with lists of names of its employees for scrutiny, and in return, the Israeli government did not inform UNRWA of any concerns related to any of its employees.”

The review explained that Israel has not yet proven any of its broader allegations about the “involvement” of UNRWA employees in association with the Hamas or Islamic Jihad movements. The review noted that last March, “Israel made public allegations that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations, however, Israel has not yet provided supporting evidence of this.”

The review stressed that "the Israeli authorities have not yet provided any supporting evidence and have not responded to letters from UNRWA in March, and again in April, requesting names and supporting evidence that would enable UNRWA to open an investigation."

The Colonna Review makes clear that UNRWA is “indispensable” to the humanitarian and economic development of Palestinians.