At UNSC, Pakistan warns against dangers of dismantling UNRWA

NEW YORK: Pakistan has warned against the dangers of dismantling United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Radio Pakistan reported on Wednesday.

Earlier this week, Israel’s government ordered UNRWA to vacate its East Jerusalem compound and cease operations under a law passed last year outlawing the agency and prohibiting Israeli authorities from having contact with it.

UN agency for Palestinians to close in East Jerusalem after Israeli ban

Following allegations by the Israeli government that 12 of the agency’s 13,000 employees in Gaza participated in the deadly October 7, 2023, Hamas attack that triggered the Gaza war, at least 17 funders, including the US and UK had withdrawn support to UNRWA.

The warning statement against dismantling the agency was issued by Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Munir Akram during the briefing on UNRWA at the UN Security Council.

He said by targeting UNRWA, Israel seeks to dismantle not only the structures that are critical to provide humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, but also to erode the identity of Palestinian people and the rights they possess.

He described the role of UNRWA as being critical to the successful implementation of ceasefire, the provision of adequate humanitarian assistance and reconstruction of Gaza.

UNRWA Lebanon says not impacted by US aid freeze or new Israeli law

Meanwhile, the UNRWA’s director in Lebanon said on Wednesday that the agency had not been affected by US President Donald Trump’s halt to US foreign aid funding or by an Israeli ban on its operations.

“UNRWA currently is not receiving any US funding so there is no direct impact of the more recent decisions related to the UN system for UNRWA,” Dorothee Klaus told reporters at UNRWA’s field office in Lebanon.

US funding to UNRWA was suspended last year until March 2025 under a deal reached by US lawmakers and after Israeli allegations on the agency.

The UN has said it had fired nine UNRWA staff who may have been involved and said it would investigate all accusations made.

Klaus said that UNRWA Lebanon had also placed four staff members on administrative leave as it investigated allegations they had breached the UN principle of neutrality.

One UNRWA teacher had already been suspended last year and a Hamas commander in Lebanon – killed in September in an Israeli strike – was found to have had an UNRWA job.

Klaus also said there was “no direct impact” on the agency’s Lebanon operations from a new Israeli law banning UNRWA operations in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and that “UNRWA will continue fully operating in Lebanon.”

UNRWA ban could result in more child deaths in Gaza, UNICEF says

The law, adopted in October, bans UNRWA’s operation on Israeli land – including East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in a move not recognized internationally – and contact with Israeli authorities from January 30.

UNRWA provides aid, health and education services to millions in the Palestinian territories and neighboring Arab countries of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

Its commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said on Tuesday that UNRWA has been the target of a “fierce disinformation campaign” to “portray the agency as a terrorist organization.”