UN slams new Israeli legislation against UNRWA as ‘outrageous’

The United Nations warns that recent actions by Israel against the UN agency for Palestinian refugees risk depriving millions of people of basic services such as education and healthcare.

The Knesset passed new legislation yesterday, formally stripping the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) of diplomatic immunity and barring Israeli companies from providing water or electricity to the agency’s institutions.

The legislation also grants the Israeli government the authority to expropriate the agency’s properties in East Jerusalem, including its headquarters and main vocational training center.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini condemns the legislation as “outrageous,” decrying it on social media as “part of an ongoing, systematic campaign to discredit UNRWA and thereby obstruct the core role that the agency plays providing human-development assistance and services to Palestine refugees.”

Filippo Grandi, the outgoing head of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, and a former UNRWA chief, also criticizes the move as “very unfortunate.”

In an interview with AFP, he highlights that UNRWA, unlike other UN agencies, provides basic public services such as education and healthcare to the millions of registered Palestinian refugees it serves across Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

“If you deprive those people of those services… then you had better find a substitute,” he says, warning: “I think it would be very difficult.”

Israel has alleged that more than 10% of UNRWA’s staff in Gaza have ties to terror groups, and that educational facilities under the organization’s auspices consistently incite hatred of Israel and glorify terror. In February 2024, the IDF revealed the existence of a subterranean Hamas data center directly beneath UNRWA’s Gaza Strip headquarters. The IDF has also repeatedly targeted Hamas command centers and gunmen hiding out in UNRWA schools.