The Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, confirmed today, Friday, that Israel's goal in canceling the agency's work is to strip Palestinian refugees of their right to return.

Lazzarini said in a press interview that the real reason behind the cancellation of the agency's work was not Israel's allegations about a number of UNRWA employees, but rather the deprivation of Palestinian refugees of their right to return.

On October 28, the Israeli Knesset passed laws prohibiting the UN agency from operating in areas under “Israeli sovereignty,” and “preventing any UNRWA activity in the territory of the State of Israel, and that it not operate any representative office, provide any service, or carry out any activity, directly or indirectly, in the territory of the State of Israel,” in addition to Israel, the occupying power, informing the United Nations of its withdrawal from the 1967 agreement regulating its relationship with UNRWA. These laws will come into effect at the end of next January.