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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.
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Smoke rises after Israeli air strikes targeted Palestine Tower in Gaza city on October 7, 2023. EPA -
Palestinians take control of an Israeli Merkava battle tank after crossing the border fence with Israel from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. AFP -
This video grab from footage released by the Israeli Hostage and Missing Families Forum campaign group on May 22 shows what the group described as Israeli female soldiers being captured by Palestinian Hamas militants during the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. AFP -
Smoke rises following an Israeli air strike in Gaza city on October 9, 2023. EPA -
A rocket is launched from the coastal Gaza strip towards Israel by militants of the Ezz Al-Din Al Qassam militia, the military wing of Hamas movement, in Gaza city. EPA -
Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets launched from the Gaza Strip, as seen from the city of Ashkelon, Israel, on October 9, 2023. Reuters -
Lightning strikes as smoke billows following an Israeli air strike in Gaza city on October 9, 2023. AFP -
An Israeli artillery unit fires at an area along the border with Gaza, southern Israel, on October 11, 2023. EPA -
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish people carry their belongings before boarding a ship for US nationals and their immediate family members, as they leave Israel headed for Cyprus. Reuters -
Palestinian youths take cover behind a rubbish container as they clash with Israeli forces at the northern entrance of the West Bank city of Ramallah near the Israeli settlement of Beit El on October 20, 2023. AFP -
A man mourns as he attends a funeral of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 24, 2023. Reuters -
A man holds a child, survivors of Israeli bombardment, as they are treated at a trauma ward at Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 24, 2023. AFP -
People search for survivors and the bodies of victims through the rubble of buildings destroyed during Israeli bombardment in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 26, 2023. AFP -
Anti-war protesters raise their 'bloody' hands behind US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on President Biden's $106 billion national security supplemental funding request to support Israel and Ukraine, as well as bolster border security, on Capitol Hill in Washington on October 31, 2023. Reuters -
Palestinians run for cover after a strike near the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza city on November 1, 2023. AFP -
Palestinian children run as they flee from Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on November 6, 2023. AFP -
An injured Palestinian woman covered in dust and blood hugs an injured girl child at the hospital following the Israeli bombardment of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on November 15, 2023. AFP -
Hostages released by Hamas Gal, left, and Tal Almog-Goldstein, second left, stand in a bus transporting them to an army base in Ofakim in southern Israel after they were released by the Palestinian militant group from the Gaza Strip on November 26, 2023. AFP -
Palestinian boys stand in their makeshift tent at a camp set up on a schoolyard in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip where most civilians have taken refuge, on December 13, 2023. AFP -
Palestinians fleeing the north through the Salaheddin road in the Zeitoun district on the southern outskirts of Gaza city, walk past Israeli army tanks on November 24, 2023. AFP -
In this picture taken during a media tour organised by the Israeli military on December 15, 2023, soldiers visit a tunnel that Hamas reportedly used to attack Israel through the Erez border crossing on October 7. AFP -
Jewish protesters block the passage of aid trucks being sent to Gaza in Ashdod, Israel on February 1, 2024. Reuters -
A man pulls water containers as he walks past destroyed buildings in Khan Younis on May 5, 2024. AFP -
Relatives of Hanan Yablonka, one of the Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip since the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian Hamas militants, mourn during his funeral in Tel Aviv on May 26. AFP -
Humanitarian aid packages land after being dropped from a plane in Al Mawasi district of Khan Younis, on May 30, 2024. Reuters -
Palestinians attend Eid al-Adha prayer in Khan Younis town, southern Gaza strip, on June 16. EPA -
Displaced Palestinians play football in Jabalia on July 23, 2024. AFP -
Palestinians injured in an Israeli strike on a school ride on the back of a cart in Deir Al Balah on July 27, 2024. AFP -
Palestinians gather to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in the northern Gaza Strip, September 11. Reuters -
Palestinians survey the damage at the site of Israeli strikes on a displacement camp in Khan Younis on September 10, 2024. AFP -
A medical staff member carries supplies through a destroyed section of Al Shifa hospital in Gaza city on September 17. AFP -
People walk past makeshift graves in Gaza city on September 17. AFP
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.
