JERUSALEM: The European Union said Saturday it was deeply concerned about draft Israeli legislation that would ban the UN agency for Palestinian refugees from operating in Israel and likely scale back aid distribution across war-ravaged Gaza.
Earlier this week, an Israeli parliamentary committee approved a pair of bills this week that would ban UNRWA from operating in Israeli territory and end all contact between the government and the UN agency. The bill needs final approval from the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
“If adopted, (the bill) would have disastrous consequences, preventing the UN agency from continuing to provide its services and protection to Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and Gaza,” the EU said in an online statement.
Israel has alleged that some of UNRWA’s thousands of staff members participated in the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war.
The UN has since fired more than a dozen staffers after internal investigations found they may have taken part in the attack that killed 1,200 people in southern Israel.
The UN agency has been the main supplier of food, water and shelter to Palestinian civilians during the 12 month conflict in Gaza.
Concern about the Israeli bill was echoed by UNRWA’s chief, Philippe Lazzarini, on Wednesday, who said all humanitarian operations in Gaza and the West Bank could “disintegrate” if the bill was implemented.
When UNRWA was created by the UN General Assembly in 1949, it was meant to provide health care, education and welfare services to about 7,00,000 Palestinian refugees from the 1948 conflict with Israel.
