From the Liveblog of
Sunday, October 6, 2024
Knesset committee okays bills crimping UN Palestinian refugee agency
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee approves two bills intended to limit the activities of UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees and their descendants, allowing the legislation to advance to the second and third readings necessary to become law.
The first, sponsored by Yisrael Beytenu MK Yulia Malinovsky, would ban state authorities from having any contact with UNRWA as of tomorrow. The second, a merger of several proposals, would effectively ban the organization from operating on Israeli territory by revoking a 1967 exchange of notes providing the basis for its activities.
By passing the laws, “we convey a clear message to the terrorists: We will not forget, we will not forgive, and we will take any measure to ensure the security of our country,” Likud MK Boaz Bismuth tweets.
“What remains now is only the vote in the Knesset plenum,” declares Malinovsky, calling on the coalition and opposition to come together to pass the law “as soon as possible so that we can get rid of UNRWA once and for all.”
According to Hebrew media reports, the bills’ passage comes despite concerns raised by Foreign Ministry and National Security Council officials regarding the potential practical consequences of efforts to criminalize the organization.
According to the Ynet news site, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has written to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning that the legislation, “if passed, could prevent UNRWA from continuing its operations in the occupied Palestinian territories, thereby denying Palestinian refugees in Gaza and the West Bank the essential aid and protection that UNRWA has provided them since 1949.”
The agency provides education, health care and aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Israel alleges that some 10 percent of UNRWA’s staff in Gaza have ties to terror, and that educational facilities under the organization’s auspices consistently incite hatred of Israel and glorify terror.
The Times of Israel Community.