UNRWA health clinic in East Jerusalem

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© 2017 UNRWA Photo by Marwan Baghdadi

Blog Post

Is There a Legal Basis for Israel’s UNRWA Ban?

In late January 2025, Israel is expected to implement its ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the only UN relief agency dedicated exclusively to Palestinian refugees.1

Under new Israeli laws passed on October 28, 2024, Israel will prohibit UNRWA from working within Israel’s “sovereign territory.”2 Israel considers East Jerusalem, which it occupied in 1967 and later annexed, as its sovereign territory; international law does not.3 While UNRWA’s West Bank headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem is still operating, there is concern that Israel will shut down the office under the recently passed bill. Under the new legislation, Israel also officially withdrew from the 1967 Comay-Michelmore agreement between Israel and UNRWA, which facilitates the agency’s operations in the occupied Palestinian Territories (oPT).4

The agency hasn’t received any formal notice of confiscation. It did receive an evacuation order from the Israel Land Authority (ILA) sent in June 2024, saying the agency is illegally occupying state land.5 The letter demanded UNRWA pay Israel NIS 27,125,280 ($7,326,711.19) for using the land without the state’s consent.6

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Protesters condemn decision by some donor countries to suspend contributions to UNRWA, February 2024.

Demonstrators hold Palestinian flags, banners, and placards in front of UNRWA’s Jericho and Jerusalem offices to condemn the suspension of aid by some countries to the agency, February 7, 2024.

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Issam Rimawi/Anadolu via Getty Images

“The minister . . . mandated the Director of the Lands Authority to stop all contracts of the ILA with UNRWA and to order us to evacuate all lands leased to us by the State of Israel,” Jonathan Fowler, UNRWA’s senior communications manager, told Jerusalem Story. “The problem there is that we have no lands leased to us by the State of Israel.”

The Israeli press reported that the ILA planned to build 1,440 housing units where UNRWA’s Jerusalem office currently stands.7 The ILA did not respond to Jerusalem Story’s queries on the plan.

“We have no lands leased to us by the State of Israel.”

Jonathan Fowler, UNRWA’s senior communications manager

Whose Land?

Israel claims UNRWA’s headquarters is located on state land. In fact, the property was leased to UNRWA by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1952, when East Jerusalem was under Jordanian control. According to Fowler, UNRWA pays a symbolic annual rental fee of 2,500 Jordanian dinars (approximately $3,525) to Jordan, which is deposited into an escrow account.

“We remained in exclusive possession of the compound without interruption until 1967, and then continuously after 1967, since Israel occupied the territory. And we have not had any challenges to our possession of the compound from the Israeli foreign ministry,” Fowler said, noting Israel’s foreign affairs ministry is the interlocutor between UNRWA and the State of Israel.

UNRWA also operates a vocational school in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Kufr ‘Aqab called the Qalandiya Training Center.

“We were granted exclusive rights to use the land by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1951, with the specific goal of providing technical training for Palestine refugees,” Fowler said. “And exactly the same as with [the headquarters] we’ve had exclusive possession since then that’s not been interrupted after 1967.”

Israeli protesters hold signs outside UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem demanding its expulsion, February 5, 2024
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UNRWA spokesperson Jonathan Fowler, October 29, 2024

UNRWA spokesperson Jonathan Fowler points to the agency’s logo at his office in the West Bank Field Office in Jerusalem on October 29, 2024, after the Israeli Knesset passed a law banning UNRWA from the country.

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Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images

At the behest of Jerusalem’s deputy mayor, Arieh King, the ILA sent the Qalandiya Training Center an expulsion order in January 2024, claiming the land is owned by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), a quasi-governmental agency responsible for buying land for Jewish settlement.8

According to the Israeli justice ministry’s Land Registry Office, the plot where UNRWA’s school is located was registered under the JNF in 1937.9 Israeli domestic policy gives the Jewish organization the right to reclaim the property under the Legal and Administrative Matters Law—1970, an amendment to the Absentees’ Property Law—1950, which allows Jews to retake property in East Jerusalem they purportedly owned before 1948.

“Whereas Israel does not allow East Jerusalemites to reclaim property in West Jerusalem or inside the State of Israel, it claims that property in East Jerusalem that used to be owned by Jews should be returned to them,” Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher at Ir Amim, an Israeli NGO monitoring Jerusalem policy, told Jerusalem Story.10

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Israeli Claims: A Red Herring

However, Ardi Imseis, former legal counsel and public policy advisor to UNRWA and currently a member of the Faculty of Law at Queen’s University, argues that international law always trumps domestic law. In fact, the occupier’s domestic law is not relevant.

“The privileges and immunities of the United Nations are very clear: The property and assets of the United Nations are immune from all forms of interference—no matter who holds the property,” Imseis told Jerusalem Story, citing the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN of 1946, to which Israel is a party.11

Imseis explained that Israel’s status as the occupying power means it lacks any legal foundation under international law.

“Israel is not sovereign in the oPT as a matter of international law nor can it ever be, by virtue of the fact that it is a belligerent occupant whose presence in the oPT is unlawful,” Imseis said.

Imseis further noted that as an occupying power, Israel can only change laws if the change benefits the occupied population. Eradicating UNRWA is clearly detrimental for Palestinians.

“UNRWA’s presence in the territory is not for Israel to decide . . . It is for the Palestinian people to decide, in consultation with the UN General Assembly, and they have decided they need UNRWA,” Imseis said. Other legal experts agree Israel’s new anti-UNRWA laws violate international law.

“The property and assets of the United Nations are immune from all forms of interference—no matter who holds the property.”

Ardi Imseis, former legal counsel and public policy advisor to UNRWA

“UNRWA’s presence in the territory is not for Israel to decide . . . It is for the Palestinian people to decide, in consultation with the UN General Assembly, and they have decided they need UNRWA.”

Ardi Imseis, former legal counsel and public policy advisor to UNRWA

“Israel’s legislation shutting down UNRWA, as part of its broader attack on UNRWA, its facilities and personnel, violates the UN Charter and international law. As a UN member state, Israel is obliged to support and respect the privileges and immunities of all UN bodies,” Susan Akram, law professor and director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Boston University, told Jerusalem Story.12

Akram continued, “It prohibits member states from searching, confiscating, expropriating, or in any other way interfering with the property and assets of the UN. It also requires member states to provide all members of organs of the UN immunity from legal processes of any kind.”

Expulsion from the UN Unlikely

Even though Israel is in violation of the UN Charter, which could lead to its expulsion, legal experts—like Akram and Imseis—believe this is an unlikely outcome.

According to Article 6 of the UN Charter, a member state can be expelled by the General Assembly if the UN Security Council makes that recommendation. Imseis explained that because the United States is one of the permanent members of the Security Council, it will veto any vote to expel Israel.

“The Security Council is not likely to recommend expulsion, but a General Assembly resolution can have significant weight with UN member states in their diplomatic relations with Israel,” Akram said.

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of UNRWA, holds a press conference in East Jerusalem, October 27, 2023.

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of UNRWA, holds a press conference in Jerusalem on October 27, 2023.

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Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images

Israel’s decision to ban UNRWA is the latest move in its relentless campaign attacking the agency. Throughout its war on Gaza, Israel has bombed 70 percent of UNRWA schools and killed 230 UNRWA staff members.13 These attacks aren’t restricted to Gaza. In November, Palestinian media reported that the Israeli military partially demolished UNRWA’s office in a West Bank refugee camp.14

While the Israeli government argues that UNRWA is not a neutral actor, human rights experts suggest that Israel’s opposition to it is actually rooted in UNRWA’s founding mission enshrining Palestinian refugees’ right of return to their homeland after Zionist and Israeli forces expelled them in 1947–48. They have never stopped demanding the right of return. For Israel, abolishing UNRWA means eliminating the right of return, even though international law does not agree.

“UNRWA gives hope to Palestinian refugees,” Milena Ansari, Israel and Palestine researcher at Human Rights Watch, told Jerusalem Story.15 “And it’s about UNRWA’s protection of the status of Palestinian refugees.”

Notes

1

Sam Sokol and Jacob Magid, “Knesset Approves Laws Barring UNRWA from Israel, Limiting It in Gaza and West Bank,” Times of Israel, October 29, 2024; Agencies and Times of Israel Staff, “UN to Israel: Replacing UNRWA Aid Agency Is Your Responsibility, Not Ours,” Times of Israel, November 7, 2024

3

Summary of the Advisory Opinion of July 19, 2024,” International Court of Justice, July 19, 2024.

5

Jonathan Fowler, interview by the author, October 18, 2024. All subsequent quotes from Fowler are from this interview.

9

Land Registry and Settlement of Rights, “Block: 29511 Plot: 3,” Israel Ministry of Justice.

10

Aviv Tatarsky, interview by the author, October 20, 2024. All subsequent quotes from Tatarsky are from this interview.

11

Ardi Imseis, interview by the author, October 23, 2024. All subsequent quotes from Imseis are from this interview.

12

Susan Akram, interview by the author, October 19, 2024. All subsequent quotes from Akram are from this interview.

15

Milena Ansari, interview by the author, October 17, 2024.

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