Press Releases

At the height of Israel’s genocide on the Gaza Strip and its deliberate targeting of refugee camps in the West Bank, and despite the recent UN Independent Review of UNRWA’s Neutrality, the Swiss parliament is entertaining a motion to defund UNRWA. Israel’s aim to oust UNRWA from the occupied Palestinian territory and eventually dismantle the only UN-mandated and most capable agency to deliver aid and services to Palestinian refugees is being aided by western colonial states, instead of adhering to the provisional measures of the International Court of Justice and fulfilling their obligations to Palestinian refugees. The demise of UNRWA is a strategic goal that serves Israel’s colonial-apartheid aspirations to eliminate the Palestinian refugee issue.

While Israel’s campaign against UNRWA is not new, it has reached a critically dangerous stage that includes:

1. Intensifying the campaign to demonize UNRWA and dry up its sources of funding;
2. Drafting laws to delegitimize and criminalize UNRWA by classifying it as a terrorist organization;
3. Taking measures to prevent UNRWA from performing its mandate, such as denying the entry of aid and medicine into Gaza if they bear the UNRWA logo or if UNRWA assumes responsibility for distributing them, orders to close UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem, and the deliberate targeting of UNRWA convoys and facilities, especially schools and shelters for internally displaced Palestinians.
4. Intensifying steps to transfer UNRWA’s mandate to other international and local organizations, such as encouraging the supply of aid to Gaza through organizations other than UNRWA, and the entry of international organizations into the camps to implement projects and activities that fall within UNRWA’s mandate, or those that must be implemented under UNRWA’s direct supervision;
5. Using and exploiting local institutions and organizations, especially due to the urgent need in light of the deliberate Israeli destruction of the infrastructure in the camps and the deficit in UNRWA’s budget, in implementing programs and projects that fall within UNRWA’s mandate.

All this is occurring in the midst of a livestreamed genocide, witnessed by “civilized” states that have taken no practical measures to halt Israel’s atrocities and crimes through arms embargos or sanctions.  Rather, Switzerland’s motion to defund UNRWA puts it in the same category as the USA - that has yet to resume its funding to UNRWA - cementing its complicity in genocide through the withholding of funds required for UNRWA to provide life-saving aid and services and continue its mandated operations.

BADIL and the Global Palestinian Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons’ Network (GPRN) urgently call on all states, individually and collectively, to:

1. Take punitive steps to confront Israel’s measures that prevent UNRWA from performing its duties, including banning the supply or import of weapons and equipment from and to Israel, imposing diplomatic, economic, academic and athletic sanctions, and banning the activity of any Israeli and Zionist institution, such as the Jewish National Fund and UN Watch, on their domestic territory.
2. Emphasize the invalidity of Israeli measures and decisions and any legislation that affects the status of UNRWA as an UN-mandated humanitarian body that enjoys international protection, including its facilities and employees, and its Palestinian staff.
3. Emphasize the exclusive jurisdiction of the General Assembly (GA) to supervise UNRWA and amend its mandate, and rejecting the recommendations of the Review Committee calling for the inclusion of Israel in the UNRWA Policy Determination Committee, or calling for the creation of an external body other than the General Assembly to assume responsibility for directing and/or supervising UNRWA.
4. Demand that the GA issue a resolution calling on the UN Security Council to freeze Israel’s membership in the United Nations in view of its failure to fulfill its membership obligations in light of its failure to implement UNGA Resolution 194 of 1948;
5. Demand that the GA establish a special UN fund for UNRWA, to which the contributions of states would be mandatory to cover UNRWA’s basic programs, and voluntary to cover projects and needs in emergency circumstances.
6. Recognize and highlight the strategic risks to UNRWA’s neutrality and existence embedded in the recommendations of the United Nations Committee to Review UNRWA's Neutrality.

Palestinian refugee protection and lives hinges on the protection of UNRWA and its continued ability to fulfill its mandate. Not only is this the obligation of states due to Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip and its targeting of refugee camps in the West Bank, but also due to the international community’s yet unfulfilled obligation to implement the right of return of Palestinian refugees as outlined in UNGA Resolution 194.

UNRWA and its Services are our Right until Return and Liberatio