Arab League calls for continued support for UNRWA despite Israeli ban

Jordan delegate says Israel is committing 'political assassination' that undermines collective rights

Palestinians queue to receive medicine at the UNRWA Japanese Health Centre in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. AFP

Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Gaza

The Arab League on Thursday called on international powers to continue supporting the UN agency for Palestinian refugees despite Israel imposing a ban on its operations, which the organisation condemned as "illegitimate" and aimed at undermining refugee rights.

Israel's parliament passed two laws against the agency on Monday, one which bans UNRWA from operating in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories under its control, and a second banning contact between Israeli officials and the agency.

Arab League states condemned "in the strongest terms the illegitimate laws banning the activities of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) ... as a blatant violation of international law and of Israel's obligations as the occupying power", in a communique issued after a meeting of delegates in Cairo.

The League considers the ban "null and a part of the systematic efforts to assassinate UNRWA politically, and a rejected attempt to smother the cause of Palestinian refugees," the communique said. It called on "the international community to continue supporting UNRWA politically and financially so it could continue its [aid] role" in the Levant.

The meeting was requested by Jordan, which fears that Israeli pressures amid the current Gaza war could result in a new refugee wave from the West Bank. The kingdom's representative Amjad Adayleh told the meeting in Cairo that by “targeting” UNRWA, Israel is “aiming to kill the hope of the Palestinian people of dealing with the refugee issue”.

UNRWA, he said, is “immutably linked to the rights of the Palestinian refugees” and weakening the agency undermines Palestinian refugees' rights to return to their homeland or be compensated. The latest Israeli moves constitute “political assassination”, he said.

The Israeli legislation, which will take three months to come into effect, will close the organisation's headquarters in East Jerusalem. Officials have said that a ban on contact with Israeli officials will make it impossible to distribute aid in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Jordan, one of only two Arab countries to have a formal peace treaty with Israel, has been vocal in supporting UNRWA, the main aid provider for six million Palestinian refugees across the Levant. A third of these refugees catered for by UNRWA are in Jordan, but most of them have Jordanian nationality.

Addressing the UN General Assembly in New York last month, King Abdullah said Jordan will not become an “alternative homeland” and any forced displacement of Palestinians would be a war crime. A large proportion of Jordan's population are descendants of Palestinian refugees from 1948 and 1967.

Palestinian representative Ahmad Abu Hauli said UNRWA constitutes the Gaza's “backbone” and that Arab countries “must reject the null Israeli measures and build up international support to counter them”.

The session brought together the League’s permanent representatives at its Cairo headquarters to form a united response to the ban on UNRWA.

In a letter to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said the Israel ban will “sabotage” any chance of postwar recovery in Gaza, where more than 43,100 people have been killed and more than 101,500 have been wounded.

Mr Lazzarini said the agency is under an attack “unprecedented in United Nations history” with grave consequences for Palestinians and the wider region.

“Dismantling UNRWA will have a catastrophic impact on the international response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” he wrote in a letter to General Assembly president Philemon Yang.

“It will also sabotage any chance of recovery,” he said, and the end to UNRWA's education activities means an “entire generation will be sacrificed”.

It is not the first time Israel has taken action against the agency, which has provided vital aid to Palestinian refugees in the occupied territories, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon since 1949.

Several countries, including the US, briefly withdrew funding for the agency after Israel accused UNRWA employees of participating in the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel which led to the start of the war. About 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage in the attack.

In August, the agency said nine employees “may” have participated in the attack and had been fired.