Press Releases

Given that the recent Israeli legislation banning UNRWA in Mandatory Palestine is part of a decades-long campaign to obstruct and restrict the Agency’s work, dry up its funding, demonize it, revoke its mandate, and transfer its responsibilities to others, all aimed at shirking the international community’s responsibility toward Palestinian refugees;

Given that successive US administrations, including the Biden and Trump administrations, have played a key role in dismantling UNRWA and the Palestinian refugee issue, blocking practical efforts to protect the Agency and preventing individual states from taking meaningful action;

Given that the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime, to ensure the success of this legislation, relies on host countries, UN bodies other than UNRWA, and international and local institutions to fill the vacuum left by UNRWA’s removal from Mandatory Palestine;

Given that the involvement of these parties—whether under the pretext of humanitarian or national action to address refugees’ urgent needs—will enable the regime to continue shifting the burden of its crimes and responsibilities onto others;

Given that the effectiveness of international advocacy and pressure will be rendered futile unless there is a clear and strategic official Palestinian position to confront the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime’s evasion of its responsibilities toward refugees;

And given the UN's and the international community's impotence in addressing the complicity of Western states requires the urgent need to mobilize all Palestinian efforts to confront this campaign;

We call on the Palestine Liberation Organization, all national and Islamic political forces, and the Palestinian Authority to immediately and publicly:

• Refuse to assume responsibility for the void created by the ban on UNRWA and its activities, regardless of any material incentives or political promises,
• Reject any attempts to replace UNRWA under the pretext of addressing refugees' urgent needs
• Refuse to engage with any actions aimed at transferring UNRWA’s tasks to other UN bodies, whether for specialization, collaboration, or temporary crisis management, and demanding that the UN Secretary-General adopt the same position; as transferring responsibilities, even temporarily, would signal the success of the Israeli campaign to dismantle UNRWA.
• Prohibit international organizations, governmental or non-governmental, from assuming the responsibilities and tasks of UNRWA.
• Prohibit and criminalize any type of cooperation by PA and PLO institutions, civil society organizations, local authorities, popular committees, private companies, and individuals with any UN body, or international institution or organization attempting to assume UNRWA’s tasks

UNRWA and its services are our right until return

BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights & the Global Palestinian Refugee Network