UN agency aiding millions of Palestinians is in jeopardy—and there’s no plan B

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. On a typical day in Gaza, the U.N. agency that looks after Palestinian refugees provides food to around 2,000 families and healthcare to thousands more.

In the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, the agency runs schools for nearly 50,000 children. Hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank live in communities administered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or Unrwa, which delivers municipal services from trash collection to social services and provides aid and small-business loans. Israel last week passed laws aimed at halting those operations.

There is no plan B. “We are really in uncharted territory," said Roland Friedrich, director of Unrwa affairs in the West Bank. He said the U.N.

had never had a member state take such strong legal steps to effectively ban the work of one of its major agencies. The laws are the culmination of a battle that has been brewing since the months after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in which Israel accused about a dozen Unrwa employees of taking part.

The U.N. fired several employees and investigated others, but its efforts haven’t satisfied Israeli concerns about militants’ presence in Unrwa’s ranks, made up mostly of Palestinians. The legislation, which the U.N.

says violates international law, bars Unrwa from working in Israel and East Jerusalem and forbids Israeli officials from having contact with it. That could effectively block Unrwa activity in the Palestinian territories as well because the agency would be unable to obtain visas, use Israeli-held crossing points and ensure diplomatic protections for its staff, U.N. officials say.