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Israel officially ends cooperation with UNRWA
Last October, Israel's parliament passed a law banning UNRWA from operating in Israel and prohibiting Israeli authorities from working with UNRWA, which provides aid and education to millions of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel has long accused UNRWA, created after the 1948 war, of anti-Israel bias and of perpetuating the conflict by keeping Palestinians as permanent refugees, Reuters notes.
Since the Gaza war began in October, the Jewish state has accused some of its employees of participating in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The bill has alarmed the United Nations and some of Israel's Western allies, who fear it will further worsen the already dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has been carrying out massive airstrikes and bombings for a year.
“We have presented the United Nations with irrefutable evidence of how Hamas infiltrated UNRWA, but the United Nations has done nothing to address this issue,” Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement. The decision does not outright ban UNRWA’s operations in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. But analysts say it will have serious implications for UNRWA’s ability to operate on the ground, and there is deep concern among the humanitarian group and many of Israel’s partners.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry said that the activities of other international organizations would be expanded and that Israeli authorities would "carry out preparatory work to sever ties with UNRWA and develop alternatives to UNRWA."