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Mahesh

30/10/24 12:29 PM IST

UN agency for Palestinian refugees

In News
  • Israel’s parliament recently passed two Bills to ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) from operating in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
About UNRWA
  • The UNRWA was established in 1949 to provide aid to about 700,000 Palestinians who were forced to leave their homes during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
  • UNRWA began operations on May 1, 1950.
  • It operates in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as well as in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan — where Palestinian refugees took shelter after their expulsion.
  • According to the UNRWA’s website, it runs education, health, relief and social services, microfinance and emergency assistance programmes inside and outside refugee camps in these areas.
  • An estimated 5.9 million Palestinian refugees — most of whom are descendants of the original refugees — currently access the UNRWA’s services.
  • The UN agency is funded mostly by voluntary contributions from donor states such as the United States, Germany, the European Union, etc.
  • It also gets a limited subsidy from the UN, which is used only for administrative costs.
  • UNRWA employs some 30,000 Palestinians. More than 200 of its staff members have been killed in Israeli attacks over the past year.
Israel V/s UNRWA
  • Israel has argued for decades that the UNRWA’s role is obsolete, and its work to aid Palestinian refugees and their descendants has been an impediment to a peace settlement.
  • However, critics have blamed Israel’s own actions, such as not meaningfully recognising the foundation of a Palestinian state, as having perpetuated the longstanding territorial conflict.
  • Israel has also accused some of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees in Gaza of participating in the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel by Hamas that triggered the war.
  • Israel has given the US a dossier identifying 12 UNRWA staffers who it says took part in the October 7 attacks.
  • According to Israel, most of these alleged attackers worked as teachers in UNRWA schools. It claims to have evidence that UNRWA employed 190 Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants.
  • Although UNRWA fired nine employees after an investigation, it has denied that it aids armed groups on purpose — the agency has been sharing the list of its employees with Israel for a long time.
Bills passes by Israel
  • One of the Bills bars UNRWA from operating any representative office, providing any service, or conducting any activity, directly or indirectly, in Israel’s sovereign territory.
  • The second Bill cuts all ties between government employees and UNRWA, and takes away the legal immunities of the agency’s staff.
  • Together, the Bills are likely to stop UNRWA from operating in Gaza and the West Bank as Israel controls access to both these Palestinian territories.
  • They could also force the agency to relocate its headquarters from East Jerusalem, according to a report by the Associated Press.
  • The Bills were passed by overwhelming majorities in the 120-member parliament. Lawmakers from at least two centrist parties joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition in voting for the Bills, demonstrating broad support for the measures.
Source- Indian Express

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