On 30 January, Jerusalem’s Deputy Mayor Arieh King popped open a bottle of champagne outside the headquarters for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in occupied East Jerusalem.
“To this happy, special, and historical day…This is the first day in implementing the law against UNRWA,” King said to cheers from a small group of right-wing activists.
The group then tore down the UN flag and replaced it with Israel’s while also spray-painting a Jewish Star of David on UNRWA’s sign.
The protesters were celebrating the arrival of Israel’s ban on the only UN agency dedicated exclusively to Palestinian refugees – the result of two Israeli laws passed in October 2024 seeking to shut down UNRWA.
Upon the legislation’s passage, Israel withdrew from the Comay-Michelmore agreement it had with UNRWA, which facilitates the agency’s operations in the occupied Palestinian Territories (oPt).
“These laws are in contravention of Israel’s obligation as a UN member state and contravention of international law,” Roland Friedrich, UNRWA’s director for the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, told The New Arab.
The laws stipulate that UNRWA is prohibited from working in Israel’s sovereign territory, including East Jerusalem which Israel illegally annexed in 1967 and considers under its domain, and forbids contact with Israeli authorities – severely hindering UNRWA’s operations.
“There’s been no official contact already for many months. So that makes it extremely difficult for us to have a constructive dialogue with the government of Israel…and to find pragmatic solutions to some of the issues if the bills, indeed, are fully implemented,” Friedrich said.
UNRWA heavily relies on communication with Israeli officials to deliver supplies, especially in regard to transporting goods through Israeli-run checkpoints.
“Until the 30th of January, we’ve had a very functioning, essential relationship, particularly with the military on the ground,…for delivering aid, running services, and eventually saving lives,” Friedrich added.
This has already become apparent with Israel’s ongoing assault against UNRWA’s refugee camp in Jenin, where large swathes of the camp were bombed.
“The detonation of quite a number of houses in the camp, where we were not informed of in advance, [so] we could not follow up on the issues related to this,” Friedrich said.
Due to violence at the headquarters from the bill’s supporters, its staff are now working remotely while 25 international team members – including Friedrich – were moved to UNRWA’s offices in Amman, Jordan because Israel did not renew their visas. Israeli police have also visited UNRWA facilities throughout East Jerusalem in the last week.
|
|
‘A death sentence’
In January, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel filed a petition to Israel’s Supreme Court on behalf of Palestinian refugees demanding the cancellation of the anti-UNRWA legislation.
But just a day before the laws went into effect, the court dismissed the petition – giving the green light for the ban to go ahead.
Shaher Alquam, one of the petitioners whose family has been living in East Jerusalem’s Shuafat refugee camp since 1965, explained that like him, millions of Palestinian refugees across East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza depend on UNRWA’s services for healthcare, waste management, and food subsidies.
“As a family, we’ve been used to receiving free education from UNRWA’s schools,” Alquam, who is also the chairperson of the Parents’ Council in UNRWA schools in Shuafat refugee camp, told TNA.
Now with the ban’s implementation, Alquam says UNRWA schools in Shuafat refugee camp will close when the school year ends, meaning its 622 students will have to turn to overcrowded municipal and Palestinian Authority (PA)-run schools or expensive private institutions.
The ban has already had some impact on school staff who carry West Bank IDs, and thereby can no longer cross checkpoints to attend work.
Across the occupied territories, UNRWA runs 65 medical clinics offering free services, including dentistry, gynaecology, and psychotherapy, and provides critical medications to patients free of charge.
“The suspension of UNRWA means a death sentence for me, as I won’t be able to afford the medications for my chronic illnesses or my wife’s,” an unnamed Adalah petitioner said. “My wife’s income barely covers food and basic supplies, and if UNRWA stops operating, we’ll have to choose between medicine and food.”
UNRWA also provides free education to over 340,000 students across 380 schools and is responsible for waste collection inside the camps. Alquam says the Jerusalem Municipality should then take over these services for Palestinian refugees in its jurisdiction, but East Jerusalem neighbourhoods long neglected by the municipality already paint a picture of the future of UNRWA camps.
While garbage lines the streets, classrooms in East Jerusalem are overcrowded and despite a two-year-old Supreme Court ruling, schools still haven’t been built to accommodate Palestinian students.
UNRWA’s future appears bleak as refugees and staff grow increasingly pessimistic over the abrupt change in the last week that looks to not only deprive Palestinians of vital services but also erase the question of refugees’ right of return.
“This idea that you get rid of UNRWA, you get rid of the refugee issue,” Friedrich said. “It’s quite concerning that through those bills is an effort to create political realities unilaterally on the ground that seek to redefine the parameters of a future solution to the conflict.”
Despite the new reality, staff remain defiant. “The pressure is there, but as long as we can, we continue to operate,” Friedrich said.
Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based journalist covering Palestine and Israel. Her work has been featured in Middle East Eye, The National, and Gulf News
Follow her on Twitter: @jess_buxbaum
