Unrwa decries ‘disinformation campaign’ as Israeli ban sets in

Israel may have been unable to eliminate Hamas from the Gaza Strip, but it is pressing ahead with its plan to eradicate another declared enemy: the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa), UN officials and humanitarian workers tell Middle East Eye. 

On Thursday, two laws took effect that effectively limit Unrwa’s ability to work in the war-ravaged enclave. One prohibits the agency’s work within “areas under Israeli sovereignty”, while the other bans any contact with the agency. COGAT, the Israeli military unit responsible for coordinating aid deliveries to Gaza, has said it will comply with the law.

Israel pilloried the UN agency for years. 

Its first attempt to ban Unrwa began at least two decades ago when Unrwa built a complex in Jerusalem. Palestinians insist that Israel sees Unrwa as an existential threat because the organisation recognises Palestinian refugees, and has stated its support for the right of return of their descendants.

After 7 October, Israel accelerated its campaign against Unrwa. The organisation, which provides aid, health and education to millions in the Palestinian territories and neighbouring Arab countries was dealt several body blows.

Israel’s war on Gaza erupted after the 7 October Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel. In response, Israel launched a ferocious assault on the enclave, killing over 47,487 people, mostly women and children.

Israel unleashed bloody attacks on Unrwa facilities during its 15 month war on Gaza . At least 272 Unrwa employees were killed in the offensive and 205 Unrwa sites damaged, the agency says.

Israel insists that Hamas has used Unrwa facilitates as bases.  The vast majority of Unrwa facilities, like schools and health clinics were turned into shelters by hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians during the war. The Israeli strikes there have been especially bloody.

Unrwa decries ‘disinformation campaign’

For example,  in June an Israeli strike killed at least 40 people at an Unrwa school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

Despite the Israeli allegations that Hamas was at the facility, people sheltering there rejected the claims, saying no armed people were at the school.

“They’re saying they were targeting fighters. What fighters? We don’t have any weapons, we came here for safety with nothing but our tents and the clothes on our backs,” one survivor of the attack told MEE.

The physical destruction of Unrwa facilities has occurred against the backdrop of what Juliette Toumba, Unrwa spokeswoman, says is an “exceptionally hostile environment” in which Unrwa has been targeted in “a fierce disinformation campaign”.

Israel claimed last year that Unrwa employees participated in the 7 October attack. Unrwa launched an investigation and in response fired nine employees who it said “may have been involved in the assault”.

Unrwa is by far the largest humanitarian organisation in the Gaza Strip, where it has some 13,000 staff and over 300 installations.

Abandoned Unrwa facilities

The Agency came under more pressure this week after the mother of a recently freed female Israeli hostage wrote on X that her daughter told British Prime Minister Keir Starmer that she was held in an Unrwa facility.

Unrwa addressed the allegation in a social media post on Sunday.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of Unrwa, said that Unrwa was forced to vacate all its installations in the northern Gaza Strip and has had “no control” over them. Its staff also had to evacuate Unrwa facilities when Israel issued forced displacement orders. 

He called the allegation “deeply disturbing and shocking”.

Israel itself has turned schools formerly managed by Unrwa into military bases for its soldiers, underscoring Unrwa’s lack of control over its facilities amid Israel’s offensive. 

One senior Western humanitarian worker, who formally worked in the Gaza Strip, told MEE that Hamas would have an interest in ensuring that hostages did not know where they were being held, but the group could have sought to safeguard hostages by keeping them in a UN facility. As part of the ceasefire agreement that took effect in January, dozens of Palestinian prisoners have been released in exchange for single hostages.

A UN official told MEE that the allegation will only heap more pressure on Unrwa at a time when it is struggling to stay relevant in the Gaza Strip.

Arab states scramble to support Unrwa

The US already cut aid to Unrwa in 2024. Arab foreign ministers from key US partners—Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar—are scrambling to support Unrwa.

At a meeting in Cairo on Saturday they said to played a”pivotal, indispensable and irreplaceable role” adding that they were “categorically rejecting any attempts to bypass it or limit its role”.

For its part, Unrwa has warned that Israel’s latest laws risk undermining the ceasefire in Gaza, complicating the delivery of aid at a time when it should be surged into the enclave.

Lazzarini noted on X that during the first three days of the ceasefire in Gaza, Unrwa brought in enough food to feed 1 million people and its workers distributed rations to 300,000 people.

“Preventing Unrwa to operate might sabotage the Gaza Ceasefire,” he warned, “failing once again hopes of people who have gone through unspeakable suffering”.