“Is it possible that after 42,000 people killed, you cannot empathise with the Palestinians?” Albanese said in her statement about the need to “recognise (Israel’s war on Gaza) as a genocide”. “Those of you who have not uttered a word about what is happening in Gaza demonstrate that empathy has evaporated from this room,” she added.

Was Albanese too idealistic when she chose to appeal to empathy which, in her words, represents “the glue that makes us stand united as humanity”?

The answer largely depends on how we wish to define the role being played by the UN and its various institutions; whether its global platform was established as a guarantor of peace, or as a political club for those with military might and political power to impose their agendas on the rest of the world?

Albanese is not the first person to express deep frustration with the institutional, let alone the moral collapse of the UN, or the inability of the institution to effect any kind of tangible change, especially during times of great crises.

The UN’s own Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, himself had accused the executive branch of the UN, the Security Council, of being “outdated”, “unfair” and an “ineffective system”.

“The truth is that the Security Council has systematically failed in relation to the capacity to put an end to the most dramatic conflicts that we face today,” he said, referring to “Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine”. Also, although noting that “The UN is not the Security Council”, Guterres acknowledged that all UN bodies “suffer from the fact that the people look at them and think, ‘Well, but the Security Council has failed us.’”

Some UN officials, however, are mainly concerned about how the UN’s failure is compromising the standing of the international system, thus whatever remains of their own credibility. But some, like Albanese, are indeed driven by an overriding sense of humanity.

On 28 October, 2023, mere weeks after the start of the war, the Director of the New York office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights left his post because he could no longer find any room to reconcile between the failure to stop the war in Gaza and the credibility of the institution.

“This will be my last communication to you,” Craig Mokhiber wrote to the UN High Commissioner in Geneva, Volker Turk. “Once again we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes and the organisation we serve appears powerless to stop it,” Mokhiber added.

The phrase “once again” may explain why the UN official made his decision to leave shortly after the start of the war. He felt that history was repeating itself, in all its gory details, while the international community remained divided between powerlessness and apathy.

The problem is multi-layered, complicated by the fact that UN officials and employees do not have the power to alter the very skewed structure of the world’s largest political institution. That power lies in the hands of those who wield political, military, financial and veto power.

“UN in Gaza,” Digital, Midjourney / Clip2Comic, 2024.

Within that context, countries like Israel can do whatever they want, including outlawing the very UN organisations that have been commissioned to uphold international law, as the Israeli Knesset did on 28 October when it passed a law banning UNRWA from conducting “any activity” or providing services in Israel and the Occupied Territories.

But is there a way out?

Many, especially in the Global South, believe that the UN has outlived its usefulness or needs serious reforms.

These assessments are valid, based on this simple maxim: The UN was established in 1945 with the main objectives of the “maintenance of international peace and security, the promotion of the well-being of the peoples of the world, and international cooperation to these ends.”

Very little of the above commitment has been achieved. In fact, not only has the UN failed at that primary mission, but it has become a manifestation of the unequalled distribution of power among its members.

Though the UN was formed following the atrocities of WWII, now it stands largely useless in its inability to stop similar atrocities in Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan and elsewhere.

In her speech, Albanese pointed out that, if the UN’s failures continue, its mandate will become even “more and more irrelevant to the rest of the world”, especially during these times of turmoil.

Albanese is right, of course, but considering the irreversible damage that has already taken place, one can hardly find a moral, let alone rational justification of why the UN, at least in its current form, should continue to exist.

Now that the Global South is finally rising with its own political, economic and legal initiatives, it is time for these new bodies to either offer a complete alternative to the UN or push for serious and irreversible reforms in the organisation.

Either that or the international system will continue to be defined by nothing but apathy and self-interest.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

Via Middle East Monitor

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

According to UN spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) submitted 98 access requests for passage through a checkpoint in the Gaza Valley, but only 15 were approved.

He announced that “over the past three days, teams from OCHA, UN human rights agencies and other humanitarian groups have visited nine locations in Gaza City to assess the needs of hundreds of displaced families, many of whom are returning to northern Gaza.”

Dujarric expressed serious concerns for Palestinians still in northern Gaza due to the ongoing blockade, urging Israel to allow critical humanitarian operations.

Aid workers are deployed across #Gaza but their ability to operate is obstructed.

43% of our movements coordinated with the Israeli authorities in October were rejected and a further 16% faced impediments.#AccessDenied

The full update: https://t.co/8U9ae2Gwac pic.twitter.com/ElHtcuXy8n

— OCHA OPT (Palestine) (@ochaopt) November 12, 2024

Moreover, a new report from OCHA further reveals that humanitarian groups submitted 50 requests to enter northern Gaza in October, of which 33 were denied and eight were accepted but faced delays that disturbed their missions, according to a UN spokesperson.

The report says,

“Humanitarian access to northern Gaza, particularly north Gaza governorate, was extremely limited. OCHA registered 98 attempts for coordinated movements to northern Gaza via the checkpoint along Wadi Gaza, of which 85 per cent were denied or impeded. Only 9 were able to move through the checkpoint without issues. Since approximately 6 October, the main towns of North Gaza governorate – Jabalya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia – have been under an Israeli forces siege, with the access of humanitarian missions being blocked, with very few exceptions.”

OCHA added,

“From 6 to 31 October, no humanitarian movements were facilitated by the Israeli authorities to Jabalya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, the main towns in North Gaza. During this period, thirty-six (36) mission requests were submitted to access these areas, of which twenty-seven (27) were denied and nine (9) were impeded. Of the impeded missions, only three (3) were able to fulfill some of their objectives and three (3) were impeded so significantly it was not possible to achieve any movement objectives. In addition, 14 Erez West humanitarian cargo pick up missions intended to distribute humanitarian supplies in Jabalya were not facilitated to reach people in dire need of assistance.”

“Flying Dutchman,” Digital, Midjourney / IbisPaint, 2024.

The report comes amid an escalating humanitarian crisis, as northern Gaza faces severe famine conditions after over 50 days with no aid or supplies allowed in. UN agencies warn that the area’s hundreds of thousands of residents are enduring extreme violence, including forced displacement and life-threatening shortages of food and resources.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians, including dozens of patients in three hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip, were “in immediate danger of starvation or long-term health consequences”, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor warned on Sunday.

The Monitor added that “Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon is one component of its ongoing genocide in the Strip, which also includes mass killings and forced displacement”.

Israel has continued a devastating offensive on Gaza since an attack last year by Hamas, despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire.

More than 43,600 people have since been killed, mostly women and children, and nearly 103,000 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its actions in Gaza.

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.Two paragraphs quoted from the OCHA report were inserted.

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – The recent Israeli measures against the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)—including two controversial bills to ban UNRWA from operating on Israeli territory and areas under Israel’s control—are certainly a distressing development. In the early years of Israel’s statehood, after its 1948 establishment, Israel’s UN membership was held up for two years due to unresolved questions around the status of displaced Palestinians. The United Nations was still quite young when it passed Resolution 194, which recognized the rights of Palestinian refugees to return home and receive compensation for their losses—a commitment that has influenced rounds of talks over the decades.

Since then, this resolution has been a pivotal point in discussions between Palestinians and Israelis. Palestinians have continued to demand that Israel acknowledge its role in this forced displacement and provide compensation, seeing it not only as a matter of historical fact but as an overdue moral obligation. Today, Israel’s treatment of UNRWA reflects the chronic tension between its own state objectives and a humanitarian question the UN has never abandoned. Israel’s recent actions raise pricking questions about its commitment to that international consensus and the lingering need for accountability in this conflict.

The United States, in order to address the dire conditions faced by Palestinian refugees along Israel’s borders, played a major role in establishing UNRWA in 1950. This agency, originally backed by substantial American funding, became a critical lifeline for Palestinian refugees across the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, continuously serving a population that is now almost six million. Since its inception, UNRWA has remained a purely humanitarian outfit in every sense, focused solely on delivering essential services such as education, food, medical care, and fuel to a community facing immense hardship.

“UN in Gaza,” Digital, Midjourney / Clip2Comic, 2024.

However, this lifeline faced a serious setback during the Trump administration, which squeezed U.S. contributions. Biden, due to mounting pressure from pro-Israel factions in Congress, partly upheld this a stance . The funding gap has emboldened Israel’s right-wing extremist leaders to diminish the significance of the Palestinian refugee crisis in global discourse. Obviously, without UNRWA, Palestinians risk losing their most vital support system, which provides stability in an otherwise precarious situation.

Although UNRWA operates strictly within its UN mandate, its mere presence has become a focal point in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Over the years, Israel’s supporters have worked to erode the agency’s reputation, urging major contributors to withhold funding or, in some cases, presenting dubious claims about UNRWA’s operations. The accusation that UNRWA staff were somehow complicit in Hamas’ attacks on October 7 was promptly investigated by a special UN committee. The findings were unequivocal: no evidence linked UNRWA staff to any wrongdoing. The inquiry exposed and rebutted Israel’s baseless allegations.

The UN inquiry divulged that Israel hadn’t provided names or credible information to substantiate these allegations. In fact, UNRWA had been requesting such details from Israel since 2011, with no response. This episode has exposed the continued challenges faced by UNRWA in executing its mandate amidst politicized pressure from Israel.

In a stunning turn of events on October 28, Israel’s Knesset overwhelmingly voted to ban the UNRWA from operating within Israel, with 92 out of 120 members supporting the move. In a second measure, 87 Knesset members also approved a ban on Israeli state authorities interacting with UNRWA, effectively hobbling its capacity to operate in the Occupied Territories. This week, foreign ministers from Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the UK warned of the “devastating consequences” this ban could unleash across the West Bank and Gaza.

Shortly before this, in another blatant display of brutal aggression, Israeli authorities seized the land in East Jerusalem housing UNRWA’s headquarters, reportedly to construct 1,440 new settlement units. This move contravenes international law.

The timing and audacity of these actions have left the international community grappling with a troubling reality. Israel’s plans to dismantle the very mechanisms designed to support and assist vulnerable Palestinians will not only aggravate the humanitarian crisis but also deepen the operational problems for the agency. In choosing to silence the very agency tasked with aiding displaced Palestinians, Israel is seriously damaging its own legitimacy on the global stage. In so doing, Israel is actually strengthening the case of those who question that very legitimacy. Ironically, in attempting to erase the presence of Palestinian refugees from its landscape, Israel’s actions could very well enhance the visibility of that issue.

(The Conversation) – Israel’s relationship with the United Nations has historically been strained, but over the past year, tensions have reached new levels. On October 28, the Israeli parliament (the Knesset) passed a law to prohibit operations of the UN’s relief and works agency (Unrwa) – the UN body responsible for Palestinian refugees – within the territory it controls. It’s a legal and political development which many fear will have grave humanitarian consequences for Palestinians in Gaza and beyond.

The decision also prompts questions about what lies ahead for the increasingly divisive relationship between the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and the UN. There is even speculation that the Unrwa ban could lead to Israel being expelled from the UN general assembly.

Israel’s relations with the UN have long been fractious. But Unrwa has come in for particular criticism from successive Israeli governments over the years.

The agency was set up in 1949 to support Palestinian refugees displaced during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. What was originally intended to be a temporary agency has now operated for more than seven decades, thanks to the unending hostilities between Israel and the Palestinian people. In addition to humanitarian assistance, Unrwa provides education, healthcare and a range of social services to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Unrwa’s schools have been a particular bugbear for Israeli critics. It has been pointed out that textbooks provided by the Palestinian Authority and used in some Unrwa schools were “pivotal in radicalising generations of Gazans”. There have also been allegations that money intended to support Unrwa relief works has been finding its way to Hamas.

But it was the alleged involvement of Unrwa employees in the October 7 attack on Israel, spearheaded by Hamas, that brought the issue to a head earlier this year. In January, Israel presented Joe Biden’s US administration with a dossier that purported to present evidence that 12 Unrwa staff had taken an active part in the attack. The UN announced it had dismissed the surviving staff named in the dossier – but the accusations led several countries to suspend their Unrwa funding.

Unrwa’s commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini, described the suspension of funding as a “collective punishment”. He said it would have grave consequences for Gaza’s civilians who were – and remain – at high risk of famine.

An independent review set up by Lazzarini reported in April and found no evidence that the agency had been infiltrated by Hamas. Instead, it stressed how Unrwa’s work was an “indispensable lifeline” for civilians in Gaza and the West Bank. As a result, international funding of Unrwa was resumed by all countries but the US.

At loggerheads

Now Israel has gone a step further and banned Unrwa operations. This appears to be the latest blow in a campaign of hostility against the UN that has been years in the making.

In recent years, Netanyahu’s anti-UN rhetoric has escalated considerably. In 2022, the UN general assembly (UNGA) voted in favour of a resolution calling for the International Court of Justice to give its opinion on Israel’s “prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of Palestinian territory”. Netanyahu called the decision “despicable”. He refused to recognise the vote, saying:

Like hundreds of the twisted decisions against Israel taken by the UNGA over the years, today’s despicable decision will not bind the Israeli government. The Jewish nation is not an occupier in its own land and its own eternal capital, Jerusalem.

During the past year, as it has continued its assault on Gaza, Israel’s efforts to delegitimise the UN have also intensified. At the beginning of October, after Iran had launched a barrage of rockets at Israeli military installations, Israel barred the UN secretary general, António Guterres, from entering the country. Foreign minister Israel Katz commented: “Anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel … does not deserve to set foot on Israeli soil.”

“Death of UNRWA,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / Crop2Comic, 2024.

Meanwhile, units of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have been involved in a number of incidents which have threatened the safety of UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon (Unifil). The peacekeepers are there under a mandate to safeguard Lebanese civilians in the area, where Israel has been conducting what it calls its “military operation” since the beginning of October. Many scholars of international law believe the IDF’s actions could be interpreted as war crimes.

This in turn led to a public spat with the French president, Emmanuel Macron. Calling on Israel to respect the neutrality of Unifil peacekeepers, Macron said Netanyahu should “not forget that his country was created by a decision of the UN” – to which Netanyahu replied:

It was not the UN resolution that established the state of Israel, but rather the victory achieved in the war of independence with the blood of heroic fighters, many of whom were Holocaust survivors, including from the Vichy regime in France.

The last clause was a pointed reminder that a section of the French government collaborated with the Nazi regime in the extermination of French Jews.

International condemnation

But it’s the decision to bar Unrwa from Israel that has drawn the harshest international criticism, and which threatens to further isolate the country diplomatically. The UN secretary general has been joined by the EU and US in urging Israel to reconsider.

Washington has already been highly critical of what it describes as “Israeli efforts to starve Palestinians” in parts of Gaza, and the US and UK are both reported to be considering suspending arms sales to Israel.

Amnesty International, meanwhile, said the law “amounts to the criminalisation of humanitarian aid and will worsen an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis”. But Israel has signalled it intends to hold firm, while insisting it will “continue to do everything in its power” to ensure that aid continues to reach “ordinary Gazans”.

But the vast majority of Gaza’s population is now displaced. Most of the built infrastructure – including hospitals – has been destroyed. And Israel’s military operations are forcing most civilians out of the north of the Gaza Strip. So, the question now is whether the effective crippling of the largest international aid agency working in Gaza will simply make matters worse for the people living there.

Lisa Strömbom, Ph D, Associate Professor, Lund University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

(The Conversation) – “Where is the UN?” is a question that has often been asked since the start of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. As the death toll rises and the conflict spreads, the UN appears woefully unable to fulfil its mandate to save humanity “from the scourge of war” – as it was set up to do.

While the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, has repeatedly condemned Israel – and been banned from the country for his pains – his pleas have been ignored. Attempts by the UN to sanction Israel have also failed. UN sanctions require the UN security council’s consent. The US has used its power as a permanent member to veto draft resolutions seeking to do so.

There have also been calls to suspend Israel from the UN. On October 30, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, called on the UN general assembly to suspend Israel’s membership because, as he said: “Israel is attacking the UN system.”

Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories is reported to have told a news conference the same day that the UN should “consider the suspension of Israel’s credentials as a member of the UN until it ends violating international law and withdraws the ‘clearly unlawful’ occupation.”

But suspending a member is more complicated and politically fraught than many appreciate.

Israel and the UN

For decades, Israel’s relationship with the UN has been fractious. This is primarily because of the UN’s stance on what it refers to as Israel’s “unlawful presence” in what it defines as
“occupied territories” in Palestine. In the past 12 months of the latest conflict in Gaza, this relationship has deteriorated further.

Many have argued that Israel has repeatedly violated UN resolutions and treaties, including the genocide convention during its campaign in Gaza. Some UN officials have accused Israel – and certain Palestinian groups – of committing war crimes. Israel has also come into direct conflict with UN agencies – some 230 UN personnel have been killed during the offensive, and many governments and UN officials have alleged that Israel deliberately targeted UN peacekeepers in Lebanon.

But the enmity between Israel and the UN came to a head on October 28, when the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, banned the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa) from operating inside Israel, sparking a wave of condemnation.

The UN’s powers

Given this open hostility towards the UN, it is not surprising that some are now calling for Israel’s membership to be suspended.

But can the UN legally suspend a member? The answer is yes. Under articles 5 and 6 of the UN charter a member state may be suspended or expelled if it is found to have “persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter”.

But articles 5 and 6 both state that suspension and expulsion require the consent of the general assembly as well as “the recommendation of the security council”. As such, suspending Israel requires the consent of the five permanent security council members: the US, UK, China, Russia and France.

And, given the US’s past record and current president Joe Biden’s affirmation of his “ironclad support” for Israel, this is effectively inconceivable. But while it is, therefore, highly unlikely that articles 5 or 6 will be invoked against Israel, there remains a potentially feasible option.

The South Africa precedent

At the start of each annual general assembly session, the credentials committee reviews submissions from each member state before they are formally admitted. Usually, this is a formality, but on September 27 1974, the credentials of South Africa – which was then operating an apartheid system – were rejected.

Embed from Getty Images
Key Speakers On The Final Day Of The 79th Session Of The United Nations General Assembly. Sheikh Shakhboot Nahyan Al-Nahyan, United Arab Emirates’ minister of state, speaks during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, US, on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. World leaders from more than 190 nations have descended on New York City for the general assembly’s annual high level debate as well as discussions on the war in Gaza, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and issues ranging from climate change to the challenge posed by artificial intelligence. Photographer: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Three days later, the general assembly passed resolution 3207 which called on the security council to, “review the relationship between the United Nations and South Africa in light of the constant violation by South Africa of the principles of the Charter”.

A draft resolution calling for South Africa’s expulsion was eventually put to the security council at the end of October, but it was vetoed by the US, the UK and France.

However, on November 12, the president of the general assembly, Algeria’s Abdelaziz Bouteflika, ruled that given the credentials committee’s decision and the passing of resolution 3207, “the general assembly refuses to allow the delegation of South Africa to participate in its work”. South Africa remained suspended from the general assembly until June 1994 following the ending of apartheid.

It is important to note that South Africa was not formally suspended from the UN, only the general assembly. Nonetheless, it was a hugely significant move.

A viable solution?

Could the same measure be applied against Israel and would it be effective? The South Africa case shows it is legally possible. It would also undoubtedly send a powerful message, simultaneously increasing Israel’s international isolation and restoring some much needed faith in the UN.

The 79th session of the UN general assembly began in September, so it’s too late for the credentials committee to reject Israel. But this could conceivably happen prior to the 80th session next year, if there was sufficient political will. But this is a big “if”.

Though a majority of states in the general assembly are highly critical of Israel, many do not want the credentials committee to become more politically selective because they fear this could be used against them in the future. Likewise, few want to incur the wrath of the US by suspending its ally.

As ever, what is legally possible and what is politically likely are two very different things.

Aidan Hehir, Reader in International Relations, University of Westminster

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

(The Conversation) – The Israeli parliament’s vote on Oct. 28, 2024, to ban the United Nations agency that provides relief for Palestinian refugees is likely to affect millions of people – it also fits a pattern.

Aid for refugees, particularly Palestinian refugees, has long been politicized, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, has been targeted throughout its 75-year history.

This was evident earlier in the current Gaza conflict, when at least a dozen countries, including the U.S., suspended funding to the UNRWA, citing allegations made by Israel that 12 UNRWA employees participated in the attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. In August, the U.N. fired nine UNRWA employees for alleged involvement in the attack. An independent U.N. panel established a set of 50 recommendations to ensure UNRWA employees adhere to the principle of neutrality.

The vote by the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to ban the UNRWA goes a step further. It will, when it comes into effect, prevent the UNRWA from operating in Israel and will severely affect its ability to serve refugees in any of the occupied territories that Israel controls, including Gaza. This could have devastating consequences for livelihoods, health, the distribution of food aid and schooling for Palestinians. It would also damage the polio vaccination campaign that the UNRWA and its partner organizations have been carrying out in Gaza since September. Finally, the bill bans communication between Israeli officials and the UNRWA, which would end efforts by the agency to coordinate the movements of aid workers to prevent unintentional targeting by the Israel Defense Forces.

Refugee aid, and humanitarian aid more generally, is theoretically meant to be neutral and impartial. But as experts in migration and international relations, we know funding is often used as a foreign policy tool, whereby allies are rewarded and enemies punished. In this context, we believe Israel’s banning of the UNRWA fits a wider pattern of the politicization of aid to refugees, particularly Palestinian refugees.

What is the UNRWA?

The UNRWA, short for United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, was established two years after about 750,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from their homes during the months leading up to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent Arab-Israeli war.

Prior to the UNRWA’s creation, international and local organizations, many of them religious, provided services to displaced Palestinians. But after surveying the extreme poverty and dire situation pervasive across refugee camps, the U.N. General Assembly, including all Arab states and Israel, voted to create the UNRWA in 1949.

Since that time, the UNRWA has been the primary aid organization providing food, medical care, schooling and, in some cases, housing for the 6 million Palestinians living across its five fields: Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, as well as the areas that make up the occupied Palestinian territories: the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The mass displacement of Palestinians – known as the Nakba, or “catastrophe” – occurred prior to the 1951 Refugee Convention, which defined refugees as anyone with a well-founded fear of persecution owing to “events occurring in Europe before 1 January 1951.” Despite a 1967 protocol extending the definition worldwide, Palestinians are still excluded from the primary international system protecting refugees.

While the UNRWA is responsible for providing services to Palestinian refugees, the United Nations also created the U.N. Conciliation Commission for Palestine in 1948 to seek a long-term political solution and “to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation.”

“UNRWA,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / Crop2Comic, 2024.

As a result, UNRWA does not have a mandate to push for the traditional durable solutions available in other refugee situations. As it happened, the conciliation commission was active only for a few years and has since been sidelined in favor of the U.S.-brokered peace processes.

Is the UNRWA political?

The UNRWA has been subject to political headwinds since its inception and especially during periods of heightened tension between Palestinians and Israelis.

While it is a U.N. organization and thus ostensibly apolitical, it has frequently been criticized by Palestinians, Israelis as well as donor countries, including the United States, for acting politically.

The UNRWA performs statelike functions across its five fields, including education, health and infrastructure, but it is restricted in its mandate from performing political or security activities.

Initial Palestinian objections to the UNRWA stemmed from the organization’s early focus on economic integration of refugees into host states.

Although the UNRWA officially adhered to the U.N. General Assembly’s Resolution 194 that called for the return of Palestine refugees to their homes, U.N., U.K. and U.S. officials searched for means by which to resettle and integrate Palestinians into host states, viewing this as the favorable political solution to the Palestinian refugee situation and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In this sense, Palestinians perceived the UNRWA to be both highly political and actively working against their interests.

In later decades, the UNRWA switched its primary focus from jobs to education at the urging of Palestinian refugees. But the UNRWA’s education materials were viewed by Israel as further feeding Palestinian militancy, and the Israeli government insisted on checking and approving all materials in Gaza and the West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967.

While Israel has long been suspicious of the UNRWA’s role in refugee camps and in providing education, the organization’s operation, which is internationally funded, also saves Israel millions of dollars each year in services it would be obliged to deliver as the occupying power.

Since the 1960s, the U.S. – the UNRWA’s primary donor – and other Western countries have repeatedly expressed their desire to use aid to prevent radicalization among refugees.

In response to the increased presence of armed opposition groups, the U.S. attached a provision to its UNRWA aid in 1970, requiring that the “UNRWA take all possible measures to assure that no part of the United States contribution shall be used to furnish assistance to any refugee who is receiving military training as a member of the so-called Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) or any other guerrilla-type organization.”

The UNRWA adheres to this requirement, even publishing an annual list of its employees so that host governments can vet them, but it also employs 30,000 individuals, the vast majority of whom are Palestinian.

Questions over links of the UNRWA to any militancy has led to the rise of Israeli and international watch groups that document the social media activity of the organization’s large Palestinian staff.

In 2018, the Trump administration paused its US$60 million contribution to the UNRWA. Trump claimed the pause would create political pressure for Palestinians to negotiate. President Joe Biden restarted U.S. contributions to the UNRWA in 2021.

While other major donors restored funding to the UNRWA after the conclusion of the investigation in April, the U.S. has yet to do so.

‘An unmitigated disaster’

Israel’s ban of the UNRWA will leave already starving Palestinians without a lifeline. U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said banning the UNRWA “would be a catastrophe in what is already an unmitigated disaster.” The foreign ministers of Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and the U.K. issued a joint statement arguing that the ban would have “devastating consequences on an already critical and rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation, particularly in northern Gaza.”

Reports have emerged of Israeli plans for private security contractors to take over aid distribution in Gaza through dystopian “gated communities,” which would in effect be internment camps. This would be a troubling move. In contrast to the UNRWA, private contractors have little experience delivering aid and are not dedicated to the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality or independence.

However, the Knesset’s explicit ban could, inadvertently, force the United States to suspend weapons transfers to Israel. U.S. law requires that it stop weapons transfers to any country that obstructs the delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid. And the U.S. pause on funding for the UNRWA was only meant to be temporary.

The UNRWA is the main conduit for assistance into Gaza, and the Knesset’s ban makes explicit that the Israeli government is preventing aid delivery, making it harder for Washington to ignore. Before the bill passed, U.S. State Department Spokesperson Matt Miller warned that “passage of the legislation could have implications under U.S. law and U.S. policy.”

At the same time, two U.S. government agencies previously alerted the Biden administration that Israel was obstructing aid into Gaza, yet weapons transfers have continued unabated.

Sections of this story were first used in an earlier article published by The Conversation U.S. on Feb. 1, 2024.

Nicholas R. Micinski, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, University of Maine and Kelsey Norman, Fellow for the Middle East, Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

(The Conversation) – The United Nations security council has expressed strong concern for the safety of peacekeepers in Lebanon after a series of incidents over the past week in which UN positions have come under fire from the Israel Defense Forces as they continue their push in the south of the country.

“UN peacekeepers and UN premises must never be the target of an attack,” the security council said on October 14 in a statement adopted by consensus of the 15-member council. It urged all parties to respect the security and safety of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) operating in south Lebanon.

In recent days, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have struck the Unifil on several occasions, damaging cameras, shooting directly at peacekeepers and, on October 13, two Israeli tanks entered a UN compound for 45 minutes and set off smoke bombs.

The same day Israel requested that Unifil withdraw five kilometres back from the blue line which constitutes the de facto border between Israel and Lebanon, to keep them “out of harm’s way”.

On each occasion, the IDF has either claimed it was acting in self-defence against Hezbollah or that its actions were accidental. These explanations have failed to convince the rest of the world.

The US, several European countries and the EU have all stated that UN peacekeepers must not be harmed. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, contends these attacks may constitute war crimes and are a breach of both international law and international humanitarian law.

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Since 1978, Unifil has lost 337 peacekeepers, making Lebanon the most costly, in human terms, of all the UN peacekeeping operations. But despite these risks it has remained in post. Throughout Unifil’s deployment, IDF has put it under pressure both directly and through a proxy force, the South Lebanon Army (SLA). As such Unifil has a strong institutional memory of staying put in the direst of circumstances which makes it unlikely to recommend a drawdown.

“UNIFIL,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, 2024

What’s more, the security council is aware that if Unifil leaves the area, another UN-led conflict resolution mechanism is likely to be required in future. This logic is why Unifil mandates have always been renewed – albeit sometimes for three months or less.

The biggest threat to Unifil’s deployment is if one or more troop contributing countries decide the risks are too high and withdraw their contingents. The post-2006 Unifil mission comprises the highest number of European troop contingents of all peace operations worldwide with the main contributors being Italy, Spain, Ireland, and France.

The two sectors that comprise the mission – sector west and sector east – are led by Italy and Spain respectively. The biggest non-EU contributors are India, Ghana, Indonesia and Malaysia. If one or more of these countries were to decide to withdraw troops, this could trigger a reevaluation of the mission’s ability to deploy.

If Unifil were to leave, it is worth noting that their compounds have a large amount of expensive equipment – much of it owned nationally by the troop contributing countries. The logistical challenge of moving troops and equipment in a battle zone would be very difficult and dangerous.

Despite the intense fighting, many civilians still remain. The death toll from the hostilities is now estimated to be 2,306 dead and 10,698 wounded. Unifil’s presence remains crucial to monitor the hostilities and wherever possible, provide civilian protection and humanitarian assistance. But for that to be possible, Israel’s allies must continue to exert pressure to ensure that the IDF ceases all attacks on Unifil.

A new ‘zone of security’?

One possible reason for the attacks is that the IDF believes ridding the area of Unifil exposes Hezbollah and will enable the IDF to continue their incursion unhindered by the watchful eyes of an international observer.

Israeli Operations in Lebanon: Elements of a brigade assigned to the 210th IDF Division entered Lebanon. There are now elements of five IDF divisions in Lebanon.

Hezbollah claimed that it targeted Israeli forces attempting to advance into Markaba and Rab al Thalatheen on October… https://t.co/jIHqHrYTju pic.twitter.com/VGLxvXSFMC

— Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) October 16, 2024

But there’s another possibility. During the Lebanese civil war, the IDF occupied a section of Lebanese land bordering Israel that was known as the “zone of security”. Its purpose was to serve as a buffer zone for northern Israel, initially designed to protect Israeli citizens from Palestinian militia, and later also from the Shia resistance groups Amal and Hezbollah.

The Israeli request for Unifil to move five kilometres back from the blue line could mean Israel is considering reestablishing some kind of buffer zone. Several factors point to this being a possibility – although the IDF and the Israeli government may not be aligned on this issue as recent tensions suggest.

First, the IDF has now deployed units from at least four divisions into Lebanon. The volume of troop numbers deployed is upwards of 15,000 suggesting this incursion is more than a limited operation.

Second, 29 Unifil compounds lie along the blue line. Were they to be evacuated by the UN, there would be nothing to stop the IDF from moving in and developing them into their own strongholds. While UN positions would need reinforcement and protection equipment, they would nonetheless remain useful.

Third, in 2006 the IDF tried to destroy Hezbollah from the air and deployed limited haphazard ground incursions. These tactics failed and the prevailing view may now be that the only way to guarantee the safe return of 65,000 Israelis to their homes in northern Israel is through an occupation.

But unlike the previous occupation, where the IDF was aided by the SLA, Israel currently has no partner in Lebanon, and it is unlikely to find a willing accomplice among the Lebanese population to help them manage the security of a buffer zone. This means IDF troops would directly bear the brunt of attacks from resistance groups, and the northern Israeli villages would be unlikely to remain secure.

The Netanyahu government’s continued use of military solutions to solve political problems has worrying implications for Israel, Lebanon and the Middle East as a whole. At this stage, Israel looks as if it might be settling back into a conflict that could become another “forever war”.

Thus far, the tactics used by the IDF would imply they are not thinking ahead to “the day after” and the cost to Israel that would come with the prolonged occupation of a buffer zone.

Vanessa Newby, Assistant Professor, Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University and Chiara Ruffa, Professor of Political Science, Sciences Po

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The numbers revealed by the investigation for the first nine months of the war are horrific:

498 attacks on Gaza health facilities by the Israeli military;

747 persons were killed directly in those attacks and

969 others were injured

It should be remembered that these clinics and hospitals were not functioning in a normal environment. They were treating some of the nearly 100,000 Palestinians wounded by Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of the population. In the first nine months of the war, 20 out of 36 hospitals in the Strip were put completely out of commission by Israeli forces, leaving only 16 limping along with some medical capacity. They faced fuel shortages and lack of electricity (fatal to some ICU patients).

These 16, severely overcrowded, had only 1,490 beds between them. A single hospital in New York City — Mt. Sinai — has that many beds. Those 1,490 beds left in Gaza were supposed to service 2.3 million people even as they were being daily bombarded by Israel.

Because of the Israeli destruction of the hospitals, women can’t get proper prenatal maternity care anymore, endangering their unborn children. American Evangelicals and Catholics who waged a half-century war against Roe v. Wade on behalf of unborn children are completely unconcerned with what the Israeli army is doing to Palestinian children.

These Israeli attacks were systematic and ubiquitous, beginning in the north, extending to the center, and then continuing in May in the south.

Although the Israeli authorities kept claiming that the hospitals were used by Hamas or had Hamas tunnels underneath them, the Commission could find no credible information supporting the truth of these allegations.

The UNHCHR concluded, “Attacks against health-care facilities directly resulted in the killing of civilians, including children and pregnant women, who were receiving treatment or seeking shelter and indirectly led to deaths of civilians owing to the resulting lack of medical care, supplies and equipment, which constitutes a violation of Palestinians’ right to life. The Commission also concludes that such acts constitute the crime against humanity of extermination.”

The Israeli military used the following tactics against clinics and hospitals:

• Airstrikes;
• Sieges, preventing the entry of medical equipment and stopping patients from leaving or entering;
• Issuance of evacuation orders while preventing safe evacuations;
• Raids of hospitals and arrest of physicians, nurses and patients;
• Obstruction of access to medical facilities by humanitarian agencies.
• “The Commission received reports about the deliberate, direct targeting of hospitals, including Awdah, Shifa’ and Nasr hospitals, with sniper fire.”

“Patient,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, Clip2Comic, 2024

WHO found that in the first months of the war, 78% of the obstruction of clinics and hospitals was through direct military force.

Other statistics were equally alarming

500 physicians and nurses were killed by the Israelis in the first 8 months of the war.

19 staffers of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (their Red Cross) were killed and dozens were arrested and attacked; they said they believed the Israeli authorities intentionally targeted them.

Israeli soldiers also simply rounded up and arrested hundreds of medical personnel, along with patients and journalists, at Shifa’ and Awdah hospitals. At least two senior medical figures died in Israeli prisons. There are still 128 health workers in Israeli prisons.

113 ambulances have been attacked.

50,000 internally displaced persons crowded into al-Shifa’ Hospital, seeking refuge from Israeli indiscriminate bombing of civilians. 12,000 took up residence in Quds Hospital.

The Commission looked at four major hospitals and found that the Israelis attacked each in exactly the same way, “suggesting the existence of operational plans and procedures for attacking health-care facilities.”

That is, Israeli generals sat down in a room and plotted out how they would destroy the hospitals.

This destruction has killed many patients with life-threatening diseases who could no longer get treatment. The Turkish Hospital was the only one with the ability to treat cancer. Since the Israelis closed it, they cut off 10,000 cancer patients from medical care, and of course some have therefore died.

The report concludes,

“Israeli attacks on medical facilities have led to the injury and death of child patients and have had devastating consequences for paediatric and neonatal care in Gaza hospitals, creating a large, unmet need for complex surgical and medical care for children, including premature babies. Israel has failed to act in the best interests of children and ensure the protection of their rights to life and the highest attainable standard of health care, and it has deliberately created conditions of life that hav e resulted in the destruction of generations of Palestinian children and the Palestinian people as a group.”

Why is the Netanyahu government systematically destroying health care in Gaza? It is in furtherance of its stated goal of “encouraging” the Palestinians of Gaza to allow themselves to be ethnically cleansed from the Strip.

(The Conversation) – United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon have reported a series of incidents over the past few days in which they have been endangered by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) as Israel continues its incursion into southern Lebanon.

Two members of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) were wounded on October 10 when an Israeli tank fired its weapon at Unifil’s headquarters in the city of Naqoura. They are reported to be receiving treatment in hospital for minor injuries.

This follows a series of other reports of IDF troops firing on other Unifil positions in recent days. A Unifil statement called on the IDF “and all actors to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and property and to respect the inviolability of UN premises at all times.

For 44 years the presence of UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon has provided a much-needed measure of predictability and stability on an international fault line that has the potential to trigger a larger war in the Middle East. Its value has often been to shine an international spotlight on events on the ground and to provide humanitarian assistance to the local population.

The Unifil peacekeeping mission is in an area of southern Lebanon that stretches from the de facto Lebanese border with Israel about 18 miles northwards up to the Litani River. In violation of UN security council resolution 1701, which was issued in 2006 and was designed to bring to an end the 33-day war between Israel and Hezbollah, Israeli tanks have been advancing into southern Lebanon since September 30. Hezbollah is fighting back – and casualties are mounting.

On October 5, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) pressed the Unifil Irish Battalion, stationed south-east of Marun al-Ras, to leave its position to allow the IDF to proceed with their invasion. On October 6, Unifil force commander Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro Sáenz denied the request. A Unifil statement said: “Peacekeepers remain in all positions and the UN flag continues to fly.”

The IDF reportedly ceased their military operations in the area on October 8. This is most likely because their military goals have changed. The rapidly unfolding Israeli military action in Lebanon has now deployed an additional 15,000 troops. This raises questions about the “limited” nature of the IDF’s incursion and its goals.

Since 1978, Unifil has provided medical services, electricity, generators, language courses, financial aid and water to local communities. The peacekeeping force has also helped to clear millions of square meters of land from anti-personal mines and cluster bombs, releasing farmland for cultivation and preventing injuries or deaths since the 2006 war.

In 2006, the Unifil mission adopted a new mandate under UN Resolution 1701. Like all newer UN peacekeeping mandates, it contained a protection of civilians clause which authorises Unifil to “protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence”.

Israel contends that Hezbollah missile attacks into northern Israel are an indication that Unifil has never fully implemented 1701 – hence the need to invade and destroy the militant group**. But protection of civilians is central to Unifil’s mandate. While the IDF claims it is targeting Hezbollah’s military infrastructure and leadership, thousands of civilian lives in southern Lebanon remain at risk.

Image by Michel van der Vegt from Pixabay

It has recently been reported that more than 2,000 civilians have died in the latest Israeli incursion, with more than 9,000 injured and over 608,000 displaced. So, implementation of this protection clause has never been more important.

Unifil must not become collateral damage

Unifil’s ability to protect civilians during Israeli incursions has often been challenged because the IDF refused to guarantee the safety of fleeing civilians, either in convoys out of the villages, or in UN compounds.

The most notorious incident was the Qana incident of 1996, when 106 civilians died while sheltering in the Fijian UN compound. In July 2006, the IDF used a precision guided aerial bomb on a Unifil post. The attack killed four international unarmed military observers working under Unifil operational control, despite repeated verbal warnings from Unifil headquarters to avoid the post. The IDF has also damaged Unifil positions in times of peace. In January 2005 an unarmed French UN observer was killed by IDF tank fire. In January 2015 IDF artillery killed a Spanish peacekeeper.

So the challenge for Unifil has always been that if they allow civilians to take shelter in their compounds, they risk becoming part of the IDF’s collateral damage.

Similarly, Hezbollah is also no friend of Unifil. In December 2022, Hezbollah supporters killed an unarmed Irish peacekeeper who ventured accidentally into a village just outside the area of operation.

International witness

Despite these challenges, Unifil still has a powerful role to play in southern Lebanon. As the fog of war engulfs all the protagonists, Unifil has the ability to bring the world’s attention to the current conflict which may help constrain the parties. It is critical at this time to have an international force bear witness to events on the ground and provide basic humanitarian assistance, monitor and report potential violations and guarantee shelter to the local population whenever possible to help the displaced people that remain within the Unifil area of operation.

On October 7, the US State Department warned the IDF that it did not want to see military action taken against Unifil or for the peacekeepers to be put in danger in any way. This warning is welcome given the recent disregard for the UN demonstrated by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. who, when speaking to the UN general assembly on September 27, labelled the UN “contemptible in the eyes of decent people everywhere”. On October 2, the Israeli government barred UN secretary general António Guterres from entering Israel.

Israel’s allies must increase the pressure for the IDF to allow Unifil to exercise the protection of civilians clause contained in its mandate. This would mean allowing the peacekeeping force the freedom of movement in south Lebanon to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid. The IDF must also guarantee the safety of civilians escaping with Unifil’s assistance from the villages. And the IDF must allow Unifil to establish safe zones for civilians trapped in the conflict, to compensate for the absence of air raid shelters and bunkers in Lebanon.

While Unifil may not be able to prevent the bloodshed, for now it can continue help to stem the flow, just as it always has.

Chiara Ruffa, Professor of Political Science, Sciences Po and Vanessa Newby, Assistant Professor, Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.