New law blocking UNRWA ‘would be a catastrophe’, Guterres warns

Two bills before the Israeli parliament could put a halt to the lifesaving operations of UN Palestine relief agency, UNRWA, which has been indispensable and irreplaceable “more than ever” over the past year of war in Gaza, Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday. 

“That’s why I have written directly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to express profound concern about draft legislation that could prevent UNRWA from continuing its essential work in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” he said at the Security Council stakeout in New York. 

He said such a measure would suffocate efforts to ease suffering and tensions in Gaza and the entire Occupied Palestinian Territory, warning that “it would be a catastrophe in what is already an unmitigated disaster.”

UNRWA’s integral role in humanitarian response 

UNRWA was established more than 70 years ago and supports Palestine refugees in five locations across the Middle East.  The draft laws seek to evict the agency from its premises in territories under Israeli control and to revoke its privileges and immunities. 

The development comes as the war in Gaza enters “an atrocious, abominable second year” and amid the threat of wider escalation in the region. 

Operationally, the legislation – if passed by the Knesset – would likely deal a terrible blow to the international humanitarian response there, Mr. Guterres said. 

He explained that as UNRWA’s activities are integral to that response, it is not feasible to isolate one UN agency from the others. 

Aid and service delivery at risk 

“It would effectively end coordination to protect UN convoys, offices and shelters serving hundreds of thousands of people,” he said. 

Delivery of food, shelter and heathcare “would grind to a halt” without UNRWA, while 600,000 children “would lose the only entity that is able to re-start education, risking the fate of an entire generation.” 

Furthermore, many health, education and social services would also end in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. 

Potential setback to peace efforts 

Mr. Guterres said if approved, such legislation would be diametrically opposed to the UN Charter and in violation of Israel’s obligations under international law, which national legislation cannot alter. 

 “And politically, such legislation would be an enormous setback to sustainable peace efforts and a two-State solution – fanning even more instability and insecurity,” he added.

Nowhere is safe in Gaza 

The draft legislation comes at time when the situation in Gaza is in “a death spiral”. The Secretary-General drew attention to the north, which he said has witnessed a clear intensification of Israeli military operations.   

He said residential areas have been attacked, hospitals ordered to evacuate, and electricity shut off with no fuel or commercial goods allowed in.  Additionally, some 400,000 people are being forced yet again to move south to an area that is overcrowded, polluted and lacking the basics for survival. 

“The conclusion is clear: there is something fundamentally wrong in the way this war is being conducted.  Ordering civilians to evacuate does not keep them safe if they have no safe place to go and no shelter, food, medicine or water,” he said, adding “no place is safe in Gaza and no one is safe.”

Uphold international law 

Stressing that international law is unambiguous, the Secretary-General upheld that civilians everywhere must be respected and protected, and their essential needs must be met, including through humanitarian assistance, while all hostages must be released.   

Meanwhile, he described the situation in southern Gaza as overwhelmed. 

"Supplies are running low and Israeli authorities are only allowing a single, unsafe road for aid from the Kerem Shalom crossing, where humanitarians face active hostilities and violent, armed looting, fueled by desperation and the collapse of public order and safety," he said.

Middle East ‘powder keg’ 

The Secretary-General has warned for months that the conflict risks spreading. 

“The Middle East is a powder keg with many parties holding the match,” he said, referring to rising violence in the West Bank and attacks in Lebanon that are threatening the entire region. 

Recent days have seen an intensification in exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and other groups in Lebanon and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) across the UN-patrolled “Blue Line” of separation between the two countries. 

Large-scale Israeli strikes in Lebanon - including in the capital, Beirut - have killed more than 2,000 people in the past year, and mainly in the past two weeks alone. Attacks by Hezbollah and others south of the Blue Line have killed at least 49 people since last October. 

The violence has displaced over one million people in Lebanon. Some 300,000 people have fled into neighbouring Syria and over 60,000 remain displaced from northern Israel. He noted that the IDF also recently started incursions across the Blue Line. 

Fear of war in Lebanon

Meanwhile, peacekeepers from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) continue to carry out their mandates to the extent possible. 

They are “serving in what is today the most challenging environment for peacekeepers anywhere”, Mr. Guterres said, urging all actors to ensure their safety and security. 

“We are on the verge of an all-out war in Lebanon – with already devastating consequences.  But there is still time to stop,” he said.

The conflict in the Middle East is “getting worse by the hour – and our warnings about the horrific impacts of escalation keep coming to pass”, the Secretary-General added, underlining the need for an immediate ceasefire in both Gaza and Lebanon, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, and humanitarian access to desperate civilians.

“That is why we cannot and will not give up on our calls for irreversible action for a two-State solution between Israel and Palestine,” he said.  “All people in the region deserve to live in peace.”