AU calls for urgent decisive action against Israel’s ban on UNRWA

The African Union Commission (AU) has expressed deepest concern at the adoption of two laws by the Israeli Parliament to ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in defiance of international law.

AU Chairman, Moussa Faki Mahamat who made this known in a statement on Wednesday called for urgent decisive action by the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council to reassert international law, which the State of Israel is bound by.
He stated that If these laws are implemented, would prevent UN humanitarian assistance to Palestinians under Israeli occupation and already under unprecedented and continued physical attack for the past year.

The Chairperson recalled the obligations and commitments of the State of Israel under the international law, including the legal obligations of the State of Israel as a member of the United Nations.

Adding this mandated UNRWA’s existence, operation since 1949, related international law and international humanitarian law, in particularly to the obligation that allow humanitarian relief for civilians in need.
Report has it that Israel passed a law on Monday, October 28, banning the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA from operating in the country, legislation that could impact its work in war-torn Gaza.

The lawmakers who drafted the law cited the involvement of some UNRWA staffers in the October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel and for staffers having membership in Hamas and other armed groups.

The legislation has alarmed the United Nations and some of Israel’s Western allies who fear it would further worsen the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, where Israel has been fighting Hamas militants for a year.
UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, employs tens of thousands of workers, provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

It has long had tense relations with Israel but ties have deteriorated sharply since the start of the war in Gaza and Israel has called repeatedly for UNRWA to be disbanded, with its responsibilities transferred to other U.N. agencies.

The U.N. said in August that nine UNRWA staff may have been involved in the October 7 assault and had been fired. A Hamas commander in Lebanon – killed last month in an Israeli strike – was found to have had an UNRWA job. Another commander killed in Gaza last week doubled as an aid worker.