File Photo: Unrwa worker distributing supplies to Palestinians in Gaza Strip. Photo courtesy of Unrwa x account.
According to the AP, an Israeli parliamentary committee approved earlier this week a pair of bills that would ban UNRWA from operating in Israeli territory and end all contact between the government and the UN agency.
The bill needs final approval from the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
“If adopted, (the bill) would have disastrous consequences, preventing the UN agency from continuing to provide its services and protection to Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza,” the EU said in an online statement, reports the AP.
The UN agency has been the main supplier of food, water and shelter to Palestinian civilians in Gaza amid a deadly Israeli blockade that left 2.3 million on the verge of starvation in the strip since the start of the war on 7 October 2023.
The EU concerns come as the World Food Programme warned on Friday that a million Palestinians are at risk of going hungrry as no food aid entered to northern Gaza in Occtober due to the Israeli blockade.
UNRWA’s commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini has repeatedly accused Israel of seeking to close down UNRWA.
On Wednesday, Lazzarini said all humanitarian operations in Gaza and the West Bank could “disintegrate” if the bill was implemented.
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