Israel’s parliament on Tuesday approved a bill banning the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) from working in Israel, despite objections from the United States.
Lawmakers passed the bill with 92 votes in favour and 10 against, after years of harsh Israeli criticism of UNRWA, which has only increased since the start of the war in Gaza following Hamas’s deadly October 7 attacks last year.
The ban on the UN agency — which has provided essential aid and assistance across Palestinian territories and to Palestinian refugees elsewhere for more than seven decades — is a blow to humanitarian work in Gaza.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) condemned the Israeli parliament’s approval of a bill banning its activities in Israel and occupied east Jerusalem.
“It’s outrageous that a member state of the United Nations is working to dismantle a UN agency which also happens to be the largest responder in the humanitarian operation in Gaza,” Juliette Touma, spokeswoman for UNRWA, told AFP.
The US said on Monday it was “deeply concerned” about the bill under consideration, reiterating the “critical” role the agency plays in distributing humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip.
In January, Israel accused a dozen of UNRWA’s Gaza employees of involvement in the October 7 attack by Hamas, which sparked the deadliest war in the territory.
A series of probes found some “neutrality-related issues” at UNRWA, and determined that nine employees “may have been involved” in the October 7 attack, but found no evidence for Israel’s chief allegations.
“There is a deep connection between the terrorist organisation (Hamas) and UNRWA and Israel cannot put up with it,” Yuli Edelstein, a Likud party lawmaker and one of the sponsors of the bill, said in parliament as he presented the proposal.
“There is no place for enemies in the heart of the capital of the Jewish people.”
100,000 civilians trapped in northern Gaza
On Monday, Israeli tanks thrust deeper into two north Gaza towns and a historic refugee camp, trapping around 100,000 civilians, the Palestinian emergency service said, in what the military said were operations to eliminate regrouping Hamas militants.
The Israeli military said soldiers captured around 100 suspected Hamas militants in a raid into Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Jabalia camp. Hamas and medics have denied any militant presence at the hospital.
The Gaza Strip’s health ministry said at least 19 people were killed by Israeli airstrikes and bombardment on Monday, 13 of them in the north of the devastated coastal territory.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said around 100,000 people were marooned in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun without medical or food supplies. Reuters could not verify the number independently.
The emergency service said its operations had come to a halt because of the three-week Israeli assault into the north, an area where the military said it had wiped out Hamas combat forces earlier in the year-long war.
Talks led by the US, Egypt and Qatar to broker a ceasefire resumed on Sunday after multiple abortive attempts, with Egypt’s president proposing an initial two-day truce to exchange four Israeli hostages of Hamas for some Palestinian prisoners, to be followed by talks within 10 days on a permanent ceasefire.
To date, Israel has repeatedly said the war will go on until Hamas is eradicated while the Islamist movement has ruled out end to fighting until Israeli forces leave Gaza.
Gaza’s war has kindled wider conflict in the Middle East, raising concern about global oil supplies, with Israel carrying out bombings across Lebanon and sending forces into its south in an offensive to disable Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas.
It has also triggered rare direct clashes between regional arch-foes Israel and Iran. At the weekend, Israeli warplanes pounded missile production sites in Iran in retaliation for an 1 October Iranian missile volley at Israel.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday Tehran would “use all available tools” to respond to Israel’s weekend attack.
Israel bombs Tyre in south Lebanon, seven dead
Israel continued battering Lebanon on Monday, including an early-morning airstrike on a district in the southern port of Tyre that left seven dead, the Lebanese health ministry said.
The Israeli military later issued an evacuation order for large swathes of Tyre, including areas that had not been previously asked to evacuate and that included neighbourhoods near a seaside hotel where journalists are usually based.
In an update, the Israeli military said it bombed Hezbollah anti-tank missile depots and other arms assets in Tyre for the second time in several days.
Rescuers search for survivors at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targetted overnight the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on 28 October 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. Source: Getty / Kawnat Haju
Footage circulated online of civil defence workers driving through Tyre on Monday and urging people to leave. “For your safety, because of the warning, evacuate immediately!” one of them shouted into a megaphone attached to a car.
Israel’s expanding evacuation warnings have made ghost towns out of much of southern Lebanon, including Tyre, and the bombing campaign has left many towns along the border in ruins.
Hezbollah carried out a string of attacks on Israeli troops within Lebanese territory and on military targets within Israel. It said it had struck a military equipment factory southeast of Acre, but there were no reports of damage or casualties.
‘Nonsense talk of ceasefire’
North Gaza’s three major hospitals, whose officials refused Israel’s orders to evacuate, said they were hardly operating. At least two had been damaged by Israeli fire during the assault and run out of medical, food and fuel stocks.
At least one doctor, a nurse and two child patients had died in those hospitals due to a lack of treatment in the past week.
North Gaza residents said Israeli forces were besieging schools and other shelters housing displaced families, ordering them out before rounding up men and pushing women and children to leave the area for Gaza City and points in the south.
Only a few families headed toward southern Gaza as the majority preferred to relocate temporarily in Gaza City, fearing they could otherwise never regain access to their homes.
Some said they had written their death notices in case they died from the constant bombardment.
“While the world is busy with Lebanon and new nonsense talk about a few days of ceasefire (in Gaza), the Israeli occupation is wiping out north Gaza and displacing its people,” a resident of Jabalia told Reuters by a chat app.
The Israeli military says its forces operate in keeping with international law and accuses militants of hiding fighters and weaponry in civilian areas including hospitals and schools, a charge Hamas denies.
North Gaza was the first part of the enclave to be hammered by Israel’s ground offensive after Hamas’ cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, with intensive bombing largely flattening towns.
Nevertheless, Hamas-led militants continue to attack Israeli forces in hit-and-run operations.
Hamas’ 2023 attack killed 1,200 people and resulted in more than 250 hostages being taken into Gaza, per Israeli tallies.
The death toll from Israel’s retaliatory air and ground onslaught in Gaza has reached 43,020, the Gaza health ministry said in an update on Monday.
