Today, Thursday, two Israeli Knesset laws targeting the work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the Palestinian territories will come into effect, meaning that tens of thousands of refugees will be deprived of services including education and health care.

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, told UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that the agency must cease all its activities in occupied Jerusalem and vacate its buildings by Thursday.

The first law prohibits UNRWA activity within “areas under Israeli sovereignty,” including the operation of representative offices and the provision of services, while the other law prohibits any contact with the agency.

For the agency, the severance of contact would effectively end coordination to ensure safe movement for UNRWA Palestinian staff, impose dangerous working conditions on them, and prevent its international staff from obtaining entry and work visas in the occupied Palestinian territory.

The law will also put obstacles in the way of UNRWA’s dealings with Israeli banks, obtaining financial transfers, paying salaries, and settling its dues.

For the occupation government, the term “Israeli sovereign areas” in the first law relates to occupied East Jerusalem, where the temporary headquarters of UNRWA is located, specifically in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, which has been subject in recent months to a wave of terrorist acts and exclusionary decisions.

In May 2024, the agency's management was forced to close the headquarters under the pressure of attacks by settlers, which reached the point of setting fire to its buildings twice within one week.

In the same month, the Legal Advisor for the Jerusalem District of the Israel Land Authority notified UNRWA that it must vacate its headquarters in Sheikh Jarrah, on the grounds that it was being built illegally on 36 dunams of land that had been seized in 2006 and annexed as a neighborhood of the Ma'ale Dafna settlement.

The notice included a demand that the agency pay an amount exceeding 27 million shekels due to the illegal use of the land.

On October 10, 2024, the Israel Land Authority announced the seizure of the land on which the UNRWA headquarters was located in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, and the transformation of the site into a settlement outpost containing 1,440 housing units.

The occupation also targeted the Qalandia Training College, with the “Israel Land Authority” issuing a decision on January 14, 2024, demanding that “UNRWA” evacuate it and pay its occupancy fees retroactively in the amount of 17 million shekels, under the pretext of constructing and using buildings without a permit.

UNRWA provides services to more than 110,000 refugees in Jerusalem. The UN agency has two refugee camps: Shuafat Camp and Qalandia Camp. It runs institutions there such as the Indian Corner Clinic at the entrance to Bab al-Sahira, and schools for boys and girls in Jerusalem, Sur Baher, and the two aforementioned camps.

The Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, had previously confirmed that there was no alternative to the agency in the occupied Palestinian territories if Israel implemented the decisions banning its activities.

He said that there is no alternative plan within the United Nations, because there is no other institution capable of providing the same activities. No other UN agency can replace UNRWA, because no UN agency is capable of providing education and health services like UNRWA, which has accumulated experience over 7 decades, enabling it to build logistical and human capabilities that cannot be matched.

The Knesset’s decision to ban the work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) represents a violation of the United Nations Charter, the provisions of international law, international norms and agreements, and contradicts the resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly, especially Resolution No. 302, which established UNRWA in 1949 in response to the Palestinian refugee crisis, which represents an international commitment to this issue after the failure to implement Security Council Resolution 194, which guarantees their right of return.

The cessation of UNRWA activities, and the resulting denial of essential aid to refugees, especially in Gaza, may be classified as a war crime under the Rome Statute, which criminalizes the deliberate use of starvation as a method of warfare.