PM: Process of replacing UNRWA has begun
Israel has begun the process of replacing the UNRWA, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters on Wednesday night as he spoke of the organization that serves 5.9 million Palestinian refugees.
“We will have to replace UNRWA. I directed that this process be started, and I informed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken about it today,” he said.
Netanyahu’s comments were made close to two weeks after Israel provided the UN with data alleging that 12 UNRWA staff members had participated in the October 7 massacre, including kidnappings. According to the data, 190 UNRWA staff members were connected to Hamas. The UN has opened two investigations into UNRWA, which operates in Gaza, the West Bank, east Jerusalem, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. The first investigation deals with the allegations against the 12 staff members; the second is an overall independent review of the organization’s neutrality.
Over 16 countries have temporarily suspended funding to the agency pending the results of the investigations.
On Thursday, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he planned to cancel the organization’s tax breaks due to them being a UN agency.
In the Knesset, the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee’s Subcommittee for Foreign Policy and Public Diplomacy discussed the issue.
MK Ze’ev Elkin (National Unity), who chairs the committee, used the format to attack Netanyahu, noting that while foreign governments have taken policy decisions on UNRWA, Israel was just formulating one.
“I am shocked” that two weeks after the revelations on UNRWA, “not a single discussion has taken place under the leadership of the prime minister,” Elkin said.
The Right, which has long argued that UNRWA should be shut down, believes that the allegations against it provide a window of opportunity to act against the agency.
Netanyahu and his government have argued that the services it provides can be handled by other organizations. Before the new allegations, opinions were split, with some holding that the organization is irreplaceable as a provider of food, health care, and education, particularly in the Gaza Strip, where it is the primary organ of humanitarian assistance in the war-torn enclave.
UNRWA’s mandate to operate, however, is granted by the UN General Assembly, where the organization enjoys overwhelming support.
The bulk of the funding for its 1.6 billion annual budget comes from individual UN member states, and some of the largest donors are among those countries that suspended funding. If the funding is permanently cut, that would limit the scope of UNRWA’s operations.
Israel may have some power to close UNRWA’s operations in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem, where the agency provides services to over 2.16 million Palestinians.
Uri Reznik, deputy head of the National Security Council Foreign Policy Division, explained to the subcommittee that its policy was to shut down UNRWA and that staff work had been done examining how to do that. Reznik said that NSC Director Tzahi Hanegbi is expected to discuss the matter next week.
Amir Weissbrod, Foreign Ministry deputy director of international organizations, said the intention was to gradually transfer the services provided by UNRWA to other organizations. Israel, he said, has asked donor countries to freeze funding and has also asked the UN to broaden the scope of its probe against the organization.
UNRWA said in response, “How and where UNRWA’s works is something discussed at the UN General assembly. For now most member states continue to vote for the continuation of our services in our 5 fields of operations.”