UN tells Israel replacing UNRWA services in West Bank, Gaza not its responsibility

The United Nations says replacing its Palestinian relief agency UNRWA in Gaza and the West Bank is not the world body’s responsibility, signaling it is Israel’s problem, according to a letter excerpt seen by Reuters.

The UN formally responds in a letter to Israel’s decision to cut ties with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, a move that UNRWA has said leaves its operations in Gaza and the West Bank at risk of collapse.

Under a new law, Israel told the UN on Sunday it was ending a 1967 cooperation agreement with UNRWA that covered its protection, movement and diplomatic immunity. The law will also ban UNRWA’s operations in Israel from late January.

“I would note, as a general point, that it is not our responsibility to replace UNRWA, nor do we have the capacity to do so,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ chef de cabinet, Courtenay Rattray, writes to a senior Israeli foreign ministry official late on Tuesday.

The mention of responsibility is a veiled reference to Israel’s obligations as an occupying power.

The UN views Gaza and the West Bank as Israeli-occupied territory. International humanitarian law requires an occupying power to agree to relief programs for people in need and to facilitate them “by all the means at its disposal” and ensure food, medical care, hygiene and public health standards.

Israel’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Rattray’s letter.

“If UNRWA is no longer able to operate it would be the responsibility of the Israeli authorities to replace its services that it delivers to civilians, in education, in health, and all sorts of other areas,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric later clarifies to reporters.