Israel Set to Ban Hamas-Infested UN agency UNRWA
Israel: UNRWA has ‘countless’ Hamas, Palestinian terrorists on its payrolls.
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Israel is set to ban the United Nations’ Palestinian aid agency (UNRWA), as a law barring the Hamas-infested agency takes effect on Thursday.
The ban comes after Israeli intelligence exposed the identities of hundreds of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists on the UNRWA’s payroll, with several of them taking part in October 7 atrocities.
“Israel, with the backing of the Trump administration, will cut ties with Unrwa from Thursday,” the British newspaper Guardian reported Wednesday.
The law, passed by the Israeli parliament in October 2024, bans UNRWA from operating anywhere in Israel and severs all official contacts with the terror-infested UN agency from January 30, 2025.
UNRWA’s last-minute appeal against the law was rejected by an Israeli court, paving the way for the ban to take effect. “Unrwa’s banning looked certain as Israel’s high court of justice refused a last minute request to intervene to suspend the law forbidding the agency from operating in Israel,” the UK daily added.
“The State of Israel ordered UNRWA to vacate all premises in occupied East Jerusalem and cease its operations in them by 30 January 2025,” the UN agency confirmed in a statement Sunday.
Despite the legal setback, UNRWA vowed to fight the Israeli order, claiming its “premises … enjoy privileges and immunities under the United Nations Charter.”
Fearing an Israeli counter-terrorism raid on its offices in the wake of the ban, the UN agency declared that its facilities were “immune from search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation.”
Germany’s DW TV reported the impending ban:
Israel has announced it will break off all contact with the United Nations’ Palestinian relief agency UNRWA after a ban on the organization’s work on Israeli territory comes into effect on January 30.
“The legislation forbids UNRWA from operating within the sovereign territory of the State of Israel and forbids any contact between Israeli officials and UNWRA,” said Israel’s envoy to the UN, Danny Danon.
“Israel will terminate all collaboration, communication and contact with UNRWA or anyone acting on its behalf.” (…)
Israel has repeatedly accused the organization of undermining its security and even playing a role in the deadly Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, during which over 1,000 Israelis were killed and another 250 taken hostage. (…)
The United States has backed Israel’s move.
“The United States supports the implementation of this decision,” said Dorothy Shea, a US representative to the UN who suggested UNRWA officials were “exaggerating the effects of the laws.”
Israel claims that Hamas has used UNRWA sites, including schools, clinics and depots in Gaza, to hold hostages.
“Unfortunately, this follows a pattern of serious allegations on the misuse of UN facilities — particularly UNRWA facilities — by Hamas terrorists,” said Shea. “It is vital for a full and independent investigation to assess these very serious allegations.”
The Trump administration backed Israel’s decision to ban the Hamas-infested UN agency. “Breaking with the previous Biden administration, the Trump administration came out on Tuesday in favor of Israeli legislation to sever Jerusalem’s ties with the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA and to severely restrict its operations in Gaza and the West Bank,” The Times of Israel reported.
The stance taken by the Trump administration is in sharp contrast to the position held by the outgoing Biden staffers. “Biden officials argued that UNRWA plays too essential of a role in Gaza’s humanitarian operations, and that it therefore should not be shuttered,” the Israeli news website noted.
Hours after taking office, President Donald Trump froze the funding for UNRAW and other UN agencies by signing an executive order suspending all foreign aid for 90 days.
‘UNRWA is Hamas’: UN facilities double as terror sites in Gaza
According to the Wall Street Journal in January 2024, “around 10% of all of [UNRWA’s] Gaza staff have ties to Islamist militant groups.” The agency employs more than 12,ooo people in Gaza.
The link between UNRWA and Palestinian terrorists is not limited to staffing alone. Hamas has inducted its facilities in its jihad warfare against Israel. “Over thirty UNRWA facilities in Gaza have been found to contain terror infrastructures such as tunnel shafts, reflecting a deeply concerning, and possibly systematic, abuse of the status of these facilities for terrorist purposes,” a recent Israeli government report revealed.
Highlighting the deep connection between UNRWA and Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) noted in an assessment that “evidence of numerous incidents of Hamas exploiting UNRWA infrastructure and UNRWA employees being involved in terrorist activity has been exposed.”
“Civilians in Gaza have even stated that UNRWA is Hamas,” the IDF observed.
Despite “clear evidence” showing “employment of Hamas and PIJ members by UNRWA,” the parent body (UN) has undertaken no probe, let alone action, in light of the damning revelations, the Israeli government noted in a press release recently.
According to the official Israeli statement: “Since March 2024, Israel provided the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) and the Independent Review Group headed by former French Foreign Minister Colonna (Colonna report) with information, including raw intelligence, on the membership of countless UNRWA staff members in Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and other Palestinian terrorist organizations in Gaza.”
The UN has failed to act on mounting evidence linking UNRWA to Palestinian terrorism. The UN’s investigative “bodies declined to consider the evidence in their reports, claiming that they were not mandated to do so,” the Israeli government noted.
UN chief warns, banning agency could undermine hostages-for-terrorists deal
Banning UNRWA could upend the ongoing hostages-for-terrorists deal under which Israel has been forced to release nearly 2000 terrorists in exchange for 87 hostages — 53 of them thought to be still alive, UNRWA chief, Philippe Lazzarini threatened. An “Israel UNRWA ban” will “undermine the ceasefire,” he declared Tuesday.
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Long overdue.
Philippe Lazzarini should receive the same treatment as terrorists..
If the deal falls through, then Israel can continue add to the waiting for virgins line.
They call it United Nations because so many nations are united against Israel.
and the US, all the while using our money,
“ enjoy privileges and immunities under the United Nations Charter.”
YHGTBKM, have I got this right? They participate in and support terrorism against a UN member nation, hide behind the UN’s skirt, all while being funded by U.S. taxpayers.
Outstanding!
>>Fearing an Israeli counter-terrorism raid on its offices in the wake of the ban, the UN agency declared that its facilities were “immune from search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation.”<<
I would imagine that any UN facilities used by UNRWA to aid and support the Hamas terrorists would not fall under the "privileges and immunities" granted under the United Nations Charter and be fair game for "search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation" by Israel as required to ensure Israel's safety.
They probably do, but so what? The UN Charter is not the law of the land in Israel. The laws made by the Knesset are (at least so long as the Supreme Court doesn’t decide they offend it).
Even in the USA, where the UN Charter is the law of the land, it ranks equal with statutes passed by Congress, and the rule is always that when two laws conflict the later one prevails, so if Congress passes a law that conflicts with the UN Charter, and makes it clear that the conflict is intentional, then the new law overrides the Charter.
Not just “a” court, but the Supreme Court. Which surprises me, since the Israeli Supreme Court is a solidly left-wing institution that has arrogated to itself the right to strike down any law it doesn’t like, and to countermand any executive decision it doesn’t like. It doesn’t recognize the concept of standing, so it hears any case it wants to, regardless of who brought it. In the absence of an actual constitution, it treats “basic laws” as a pseudo-constitution and strikes down laws that it says conflict with those. But recently it decided it could strike down “basic laws” too! So it no longer has the fig leaf of reliance on them; it’s now nakedly using its own preferences as its standard.
And yet it upheld this law. Which means the evidence against UNRWA is so clear that even these leftist judges can’t bring themselves to strike it down.
Fight it where? There is no court higher than the one in which they just lost. The UN Charter is not the law of the land in Israel.
That’s nice. I’d like to declare my home similarly immune. But the police don’t care.