Palestinian Refugees Petition Israeli Supreme Court against Laws Banning UNRWA

Just as Israel’s law criminalizing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is set to go into effect on January 30, 2025, Palestinian refugees petitioned the state’s Supreme Court to cancel the legislation.

On January 16, 2025, Adalah—The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel filed a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court on behalf of Palestinian refugees demanding the cancellation of two Israeli laws passed in October 2024 that seek to shut down UNRWA, the only UN agency dedicated exclusively to Palestinian refugees.1 On January 29, 2025, the court dismissed the petitioners’ request filed by Adalah. The Knesset and Office of the State Attorney insist on the immediate implementation of the two laws.2

Upon the laws’ passage on October 28, 2024, Israel withdrew from the Comay-Michelmore agreement it had with UNRWA, which facilitates the agency’s operations in the occupied Palestinian Territories (oPT). The laws contain a provision prohibiting contact and coordination between UNRWA and Israeli authorities, which severely hampers UNRWA’s ability to operate in the oPT, given that the agency relies heavily on communication with Israel regarding visas, transporting supplies through Israeli-run checkpoints, and delivery of aid into Gaza. The laws, which also ban UNRWA from working in Israel’s sovereign territory, would prevent the agency from working in East Jerusalem, which Israel illegally annexed and considers to be Israeli sovereign territory.

Two refugee camps are located in the Greater Jerusalem area—Qalandiya, just outside the official municipal boundaries, and Shu‘fat, inside them—with a combined population of more than 33,000.3

“My father was displaced from his home in 1948, and he received some services and benefits from UNRWA. I also followed in that path. Now, my children are also doing this, so it’s a long-standing service that we get from UNRWA. And to see this ending seems very difficult to understand,” Shaher Alquam, one of the petitioners, told Jerusalem Story.4 “How could we go on if this ends?”

UNRWA is not involved in the Supreme Court petition but applauded the move.

“Any effort to help [stop] the bill against UNRWA from being implemented is very welcome,” Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s communications director, told Jerusalem Story.5

The petition argues the legislation violates both Israeli and international law by undermining the rights of refugees to dignity, education, health, and freedom of occupation. It breaches Israel’s obligations both as an occupying power by not prioritizing the welfare of the protected population and as a UN member state by contradicting the UN Charter, which mandates member states must ensure UN bodies can fulfill their mission.6 It also states the Israeli legislation may violate the Genocide Convention—possibly amounting to a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.7

“As of now, there are no alternatives,” Adalah’s legal director Dr. Suhad Bishara told Jerusalem Story, noting how it’s been almost three months since the legislation passed.8 “The laws’ enforcement will mean an immediate violation of basic rights of many Palestinians that could endanger their health, their life, and education of their children.”

According to Haaretz, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs is in talks with the UN to transfer UNRWA’s responsibilities to other UN agencies, but those discussions have not addressed whether Israel will allow UNRWA operations to continue during a transitional phase.9

UNRWA provides essential aid to approximately 2.5 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and elsewhere. Across the oPT, UNRWA operates 65 healthcare centers that provide free services, facilitating over 4.2 million health visits in 2023 alone. Its education programs support over 340,000 students in 380 schools, offering free education and essential learning materials.10 In East Jerusalem, UNRWA  runs seven schools, a vocational training center, and two health clinics in East Jerusalem. The loss of these services could leave approximately 1,774 students without schools and 33,000 Palestinians without access to health care and education.11

“Stopping education inside the camps will lead to an increase in students dropping out of school, because families will not be able to pay money for private schools or for commuting to Kufr ‘Aqab [a nearby Palestinian neighborhood]. They’ll be in the streets,” staff at UNRWA’s school in Qalandiya refugee camp told Jerusalem Story.12

Special needs students will also be affected. So too will afterschool programs for parents and students.

“They don’t have the opportunity to go to alternative choices inside the camp,” UNRWA school staff said. “UNRWA has a requirement to have these students come to the school and provide them all the needed services for support inside the school.”

Families who can afford to send their children to other schools may face a different set of problems. Jerusalem Municipality-run schools teach the Israeli curriculum, which presents an Israeli narrative of Palestinian history that Palestinians find distorts and erases their heritage and identity.

“If they start with a new curriculum, this will erase the history of being refugees and having a final political solution for them as refugees to return to where they live,” Alquam, chairperson of the Parents’ Council in UNRWA schools in Shu‘fat refugee camp, said. “It goes back to the right of return.”

Additionally, East Jerusalem schools face extreme overcrowding and classroom shortages, which will likely be exacerbated by an influx of students from UNRWA schools. Jerusalem schools run by the Palestinian Authority are also overcrowded and are frequently on strike due to financial problems between the government and school staff.13

“It's going to be more crowded—to have more kids who leave the UNRWA system and go to Jerusalem Municipality schools,” Alquam said. “How is the municipality going to accommodate the number of students who are going to rush to attend these schools?”

Many Palestinian refugees also rely on UNRWA to provide life-saving medications free of charge, specifically 10,000 to 12,000 elderly people who take daily medication.

“The suspension of UNRWA means a death sentence for me, as I won’t be able to afford the medications for my chronic illnesses or my wife’s,” one petitioner said.14 “My wife’s income barely covers food and basic supplies, and if UNRWA stops operating, we’ll have to choose between medicine and food.”

The majority of Palestinians in East Jerusalem live below the poverty line, with the latest Israeli official figures showing 60 percent are impoverished compared to 30 percent of the city’s Jewish residents.15 In Shu‘fat and Qalandiya refugee camps, the economic disparities are intensified with the construction of the Israeli Separation Wall, which cuts off refugees from the Israeli job market. Amid the high unemployment and poverty, losing free medicine and other subsidies will certainly exacerbate the economic situation.

UNRWA also provides sanitation services—keeping the areas in its domain free of waste—while East Jerusalem neighborhoods are often neglected or outright abandoned by the municipality.16 For Palestinian refugees, UNRWA remains a critical lifeline in the absence of Israeli government support.

During Israel’s 15-month genocidal assault on Gaza, UNRWA was directly in the line of fire. Israeli bombings killed at least 230 UNRWA staff members and destroyed or ruined at least 85 percent of its schools.17 (The Israeli military claims the attacks are because Hamas operates in these areas but has never been able to provide evidence to support its claims.) The repeated bombings of UNRWA buildings along with the legislation suggest Israel is targeting the agency for exactly what it represents: the Palestinian right of return, and the existence of Palestinians as refugees, a status that UNRWA considers passes from generation to generation.

On January 24^th, the representative of Israel to the UN issued an order to UNRWA to clear and halt all functions in its East Jerusalem establishments by January 30. During the 7-day period, UNRWA international staff lost their Israeli permits due to their absence from the offices. Their visa expiration dates were also advanced to January 29, which equals expulsion due to the short notice. The Sheikh Jarrah office in East Jerusalem has been standing since 1951, and has been the headquarters for UNRWA in the West Bank which includes East Jerusalem, occupied and annexed by Israel in 1967. In addition to its headquarters, UNRWA cleared an Old City healthcare clinic as well as several schools, including a professional training center in East Jerusalem.18

Arieh King, Jerusalem’s far-right mayor, announced a development plan to build 1440 settler units in place of the UNRWA headquarters in Sheikh Jarrah, which extends over thousands of square meters. The complex is protected by a 1946 agreement protecting diplomatic sites.19

“We want our rights as refugees, we want the right of return, there is no other solution,” Alquam said. “We should stay under the umbrella of UNRWA until we return to our towns of origin.”