A bill to designate UNRWA a terrorist organization, proposed by Israel Beytenu MK Yulia Malinovsky, passed a preliminary reading with a 42-6 majority in the Knesset on Wednesday. The same bill will abolish immunities and privileges for UNRWA employees.If the bill passes the final reading, it will mean that the Anti-Terrorism Law will also apply to UNRWA. Israel will subsequently cease all ties with the agency, and the organization’s assets in Israeli territory will be closed.The abolition of privilege bill is formally called the “Bill to Abolish the Immunity and Privileges of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).” The agency is a branch of the UN responsible for Palestinian refugees throughout the Middle East, including two million in the Gaza Strip.
In 1947, the United Nations Privileges and Immunities Ordinance established by decree that the UN and its officials should enjoy certain immunities and privileges. These include immunity from legal action; exemption from or discount on taxes and local taxes; exemption from import or export bans; and exemption from income tax, among others.Foreign Minister Israel Katz will determine by decree the cancellation of UNRWA’s diplomatic immunity.Reason for the bill
The ruling comes in light of significant incriminating evidence pointing to UNRWA’s affiliation with, and complicity in, Hamas' crimes.
This includes the discovery of Hamas tunnels underneath UNRWA schools and findings that UNRWA employees collaborated with Hamas on October 7.On February 10, it was reported that a tunnel shaft leading to an underground shelter that served as a valuable asset for Hamas’s military intelligence wing was found beneath UNRWA's central headquarters in Gaza.
The shaft was 700 meters long and 18 meters deep. The IDF stated that UNRWA’s facilities supplied the tunnel with electricity.
Based on this intelligence, the IDF subsequently raided the UNRWA HQ, finding "large quantities of weapons [...] inside the rooms of the building, including rifles, ammunition, grenades and explosives."
“Intelligence and documents discovered in the offices of UNRWA officials confirmed that the offices had in fact also been used by Hamas terrorists,” said the military.
Hamas connections
According to estimates published on January 29, 2024, in the Wall Street Journal, 10% of UNRWA employees are connected to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, out of a total of 12,000 employees.
“Six United Nations Relief and Works Agency workers were part of the wave of Palestinian militants who killed 1,200 people in the deadliest assault on Jews since the Holocaust,” reported the WSJ. “Two helped kidnap Israelis. Two others were tracked to sites where scores of Israeli civilians were shot and killed. Others coordinated logistics for the assault, including procuring weapons.”
In April, a UN inquiry was appointed to investigate specific allegations against 12 UNRWA employees implicated in the October 7 massacre. Of the 12 implicated, UNRWA identified and terminated the contracts of 10, while two were confirmed dead, according to the UN’s website.After initial investigations, the UN stated in a press release that Israel had not provided “sufficient evidence” to support their involvement in the massacre. Israel says it cooperated fully with the UN inquiry.In addition to investigating the 12 employees, the UN opened an investigation into seven UNRWA employees in March and April.
UNRWA schools
CONCERNS REGARDING UNRWA are especially centered on its education system. According to its website, UNRWA is responsible for 291,100 students in Gaza and employs 9,443 staff in its schools.The website states that education uses 58 percent of the organization’s budget.A joint report, presented in March to the US Congress by UN Watch and The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), gave “compelling evidence of UNRWA’s gross and systematic violations of neutrality and other UN rules in their hiring of teachers and in their use of curricula inside UNRWA schools that constitute an incitement to hatred, antisemitism, and terrorism.”The report gives evidence of UNRWA teachers inciting violence against Jews, such as in tweets glorifying Hamas.It also goes into extensive detail about UNRWA school textbooks and materials that contained incitement to terrorism, the glorification of martyrdom, or the denial of Israel's existence.
One example, from a 9th-grade reading-comprehension exercise in Arabic, contains a story about a Palestinian firebombing attack on a Jewish bus near the West Bank city of Ramallah. The text celebrates the attack, calling it a “barbecue party.”Another example features a 9th-grade social studies question, “Why do Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank suffer from numerous deadly diseases such as cancer?” The answer is, “because the Occupation turns vast areas of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank into landfills for its toxic wastes.”
UNRWA commissioner Phillipe Lazzarini has condemned reports by UN Watch and IMPACT-se in the past. On June 30, 2021, he said that “allegations such as incitement to violence or antisemitism” were irrational and that UNRWA should be “shielded from political attacks that seek to undermine its legitimacy as a way to erode the rights of Palestine refugees.”In light of UNRWA’s contribution to the October 7 massacre and its education system’s support of terrorism and hatred, the Knesset has determined that the agency and its employees should not receive the same privileges and immunities that UN proper employees receive.
Response from UNRWA
Adnan Abu Hasnah, a spokesperson for UNRWA, responded to the news, saying, “Israel must know that if we are not in Gaza, there will be someone else who will be more extreme,” and that UNRWA was the “only moderate thing” in Gaza.He claimed that UNRWA schools taught Gazan children about “democracy, human rights, and coexistence.”“That’s all we teach,” Abu Hasnah told Ynet.Likud MK Dan Illouz said that the designation of UNRWA as a terrorist organization “is an essential law for our national security. After October 7th, we cannot continue as if nothing happened. We cannot allow the terror-supporting organization UNRWA to operate against us. We are fighting for our security and our future, and UNRWA cannot pretend to be a humanitarian entity while harming us. That ends today.”A bill by Illouz to sanction banks transferring funds to the Palestinian Authority, both domestic and international, passed a preliminary vote on Wednesday as well, after passing the Ministerial Committee for Legislation. The impetus is the presumption that the funds that go to the PA end up as payments to terrorists.
This is a developing story.