The UN agency Unrwa caught in the grip of the conflict in the Gaza Strip

UNRWA perpetuates the refugee issue, obstructs peace and serves as the civilian arm of Hamas in Gaza. This is what Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said this Saturday morning, who then added more in the afternoon on the social network X, calling on other countries to suspend their funding.

A strong reaction, therefore, from the head of Israeli diplomacy, the day after his country’s revelations. He demands that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East pay the price for its actions. And Mr. Katz goes very far: many of his employees are Hamas affiliates with murderous ideologies, he claims, that contribute to terrorist activities.

While the UN agency for Palestinian refugees announced, on Friday, the opening of an investigation and also the immediate termination of the contracts of the employees incriminated, Israel intends to promote, says the head of the Israeli diplomacy, a policy guaranteeing that UNRWA will not be part of the next day in the Palestinian enclave. In other words, he wants to end the agency’s activities in Gaza.

However, at this stage, it must be emphasized, these are Israeli allegations, specifies our correspondent in Jerusalem, Michael Paulconcerning the possible involvement of twelve employees of the UN office in the massacres perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, at the origin of the current war in Gaza.

Contacted by Agence France-Presse, Johann Soufi, international lawyer and former director of the UNRWA legal office in Gaza, defends the “ zero tolerance policy for violence and incitement to hatred » from the agency. “ Sanctioning UNRWA, which is barely keeping the entire population of Gaza alive, for the alleged responsibility of a few employees, amounts to collectively punishing the Gazan population who live in catastrophic humanitarian conditions. », he considers.

Especially since the affair was revealed shortly after the highest court of the UN, the International Court of Justice, called on Israel to prevent any possible act of “genocide” in Gaza. A ” temporality which necessarily questions », points out Yohann Soufi.

Read alsoGaza: ICJ calls on Israel for “immediate measures” in favor of humanitarian aid

The Unrwa agency caught in the crossfire

Shortly after the American announcement, which very quickly announced this Saturday the suspension of its funding to UNRWA, Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada then announced the suspension of their own funding.

But the European Union, another major donor to this UN agency, prefers to wait, like Switzerland. On Friday, the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell indicated that he too wanted “full transparency” from the agency before making a decision.

Ditto within the Union for Ireland, which took the “ decision in principle » not to suspend its aid, as greeted by Mary Lawlor, United Nations special rapporteur on human rights defenders, who adds on X: “ It is wrong for other governments to make innocent civilians suffer even more. »

Several other Member States, however, did not wait to suspend their funding, such as Finland and Italy and the Netherlands. “ We are determined to provide humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian population, protecting the security of Israel », Specified the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs on the social network

Faced with these initiatives, Palestinian leaders are responding; reaction of the Minister of Civil Affairs of the Palestinian Authority: Unrwa, says Hussein al-Sheikh, needs “ maximum support ” And ” not that we cut off support and assistance “. Hamas, for its part, accuses Israel of wanting “ cut funds » and deprive Gaza of international aid.

Because the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA, is currently the main provider of humanitarian aid to the more than 2 million civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip. and under fire for almost 120 days.

But Hamas also attacks the leadership of Unrwa, between two fires. In a press release, he condemns the dismissal of the agency’s employees ” based on Zionist information “. And to be outraged that Unrwa describes “ resistance forces as terrorist organizations “. “ It is not the role of UNRWA to take a political position “, considers the Palestinian group, which believes that Unrwa ” is being blackmailed by countries that support Israeli terrorism “.

A highly political fight for Israel

Relations between Israel and UNRWA deteriorated this week, when the UN accused two Israeli tanks of firing on one of its shelters in Khan Younes, in the south of the Gaza Strip, housing tens of thousands of displaced people.

But for several years now, the State of Israel has been seeking to close UNRWA, or to limit its action. Accusing the agency of fueling radicalism within the Palestinian population, he threatened to ban its operations in Jerusalem and asked its partners to stop funding it.

In 2018, the government of Benyamin Netanyahu obtained the support of American President Donald Trump: the United States had stopped all funding to the agency, denouncing “ an anti-Israeli bias “. But it failed to convince a majority of UN member states, since in 2022, UNRWA’s mandate was renewed for another three years by the General Assembly.

This Israeli fight is highly political. Unrwa supports more than five million Palestinians, in Gaza, Jerusalem or the West Bank, but also in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

And for Israel, the very existence of this specific agency maintains the displaced Palestinians as well as their descendants in this status of refugees, preventing in its eyes their integration into the societies in which they now live. Removing this refugee status from them would thus cancel their demand for a right to return to their lands of origin, one of the most sensitive points in negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid is in any case in line with the government. He judged on X, this day, that the time had come to “ create an alternative that will not educate generations of Palestinians in hatred “.