In just 48 hours, the Israeli Government has stepped on the accelerator in its harassment of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). First, this Wednesday, with the parliamentary approval in preliminary reading, by 42 votes in favor and six against, of a law that would extend the application of the Anti-Terrorism Law to this agency and abolish the privileges (fiscal, etc.) of those it enjoys by belonging to the United Nations system.
The day before, in addition, the Israel Land Authority sent a letter to the headquarters in the Palestinian part of Jerusalem occupied since the Six-Day War of 1967 that began to emerge late on Wednesday. It gave UNRWA 30 days to vacate the large complex, owing more than 27 million shekels (about 6.7 million euros) for “operating on state land without authorization” in the last seven years. In the letter, the Israeli government body obliges the agency to “immediately stop all illegal use, destroy everything built in violation of the law, clear the land of any person or object and return it within 30 days from the date of this letter”, last Tuesday. “If you do not comply, the Authority reserves the right to act against you by all legal means and will have to assume the costs involved. No other warning will be sent,” he added.
The Israeli Minister of Housing and Construction, Itzhak Goldknopf, of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party (coalied with ultranationalists and the Likud under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), already asked the director general of the Authority in February to expel the agency because “it acts in the service of Hamas and even participated in the brutal massacre of October 7.” Now, with the green light from the legal advisor, he has sent the letter.
The Director of Communications at UNRWA, Juliette Touma, has told this newspaper that the Israeli authorities have not informed the agency in all those years that there was any debt, nor have they now received formal notification. For Touma, “it is simply an extension of the campaign that Israel maintains against UNRWA.” According to the Israeli newspaper The Times of Israel, the The Land Authority turned a blind eye to the debt for years.
The deputy mayor of Jerusalem, the far-right Arieh King, has already spread this Wednesday on the social network United Nations blue. “Get used to it […] And this is just the beginning,” he concludes his tweet. King – who has participated in the demonstrations in front of the headquarters and called the agency “anti-Semitic” and “evil” – named the project “Iron Swords” in April. Just like the Israeli Army’s operation in Gaza.
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An accusation without evidence
Last January, UNRWA experienced one of the largest earthquakes in its seven-decade history. Israel – which has been waging a campaign to dismantle it for years and has already announced that it will not allow it to play any role in post-war Gaza – accused 12 of its local employees in Gaza of having participated in the October 7 attack and several others. of 2,000 links to Hamas or Islamic Jihad. Its top official, Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini, urgently flew to New York to meet with the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, and decided to fire nine of them immediately, due to the seriousness of the accusations, without an investigation. UNRWA, which provides services such as education and health to 5.9 million Palestinians and was the main humanitarian actor in an invaded Strip, communicated the measure and saw in a few days how the announcements of withdrawal of funds followed one another. It lost 16 donor countries, which contributed half of its budget, including the two main ones: the United States and Germany.
After the hurricane, other countries came to their aid. It continued to function thanks to reserves as other donors such as Spain responded to the urgent appeal by increasing their contribution. For weeks, UNRWA disappeared from the spotlight in Israel, except for small demonstrations by far-right extremists in front of the headquarters in Jerusalem to call for its closure.
In April, former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna presented the conclusions of the report requested by the UN and which she carried out with three research organizations. The result: Israel did not provide any evidence of complicity with Hamas, despite repeatedly asking for “names and evidence” in order to open an internal investigation. And it must strengthen procedures to guarantee its neutrality, but it has “solid” mechanisms that do not compromise it.
Three weeks later, a group of ultranationalist teenagers and young people tried to burn it down. The fire did not cross inside – which houses a gas station for the agency’s vehicles and where there were personnel at that time – nor did it cause injuries, but it did “significantly damage” the exterior area, Lazzarini reported at the time. UNRWA staff rushed to extinguish it while the Israeli authorities were slow to arrive, he criticized.
Several countries began to backtrack and resume their contributions, including all of the EU, including Israel’s main ally, Germany, in a decision that the Israeli Foreign Ministry described as “regrettable and disappointing.” The last to do so was Italy, last week.
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