Israel Strips U.N. Agency for Palestinian Refugees of Diplomatic Immunity

The legislation was the latest blow to the agency, known as UNRWA. Israel has accused it of being extensively infiltrated by Hamas.

Israel’s Parliament passed new legislation on Monday formally removing diplomatic immunity from the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, part of an ongoing Israeli crackdown against the body.

The legislation could potentially expose the United Nations Relief and Works Agency — widely known as UNRWA — to legal action in Israeli courts. It also bars Israeli companies from providing water, electricity or financial services to UNRWA institutions. The law will also allow the Israeli authorities to expropriate two UNRWA offices in East Jerusalem.

U.N. agencies are typically entitled to diplomatic immunity — enshrined in an international convention which Israel ratified — as part of their role as neutral mediators. Their offices are considered to be “inviolable,” similar to a foreign embassy, as well as exempt from most taxes.

The unusual move to strike a U.N. body’s diplomatic immunity was just the latest blow in its yearslong clash with Israel, which began a crackdown against the group since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attack in southern Israel, and subsequent war in Gaza.

Israel already banned UNRWA last year, alleging that Hamas had fundamentally compromised its Gaza branch. The legislation barred the agency from all contact with the Israeli authorities, hampering its operations in the West Bank and Gaza.

UNRWA says Israel is trying to discredit the agency, which provides education and heath care to millions of Palestinians across the Middle East. The group’s officials say Israel has provided no proof for its claims of sweeping misconduct by its employees.

After the Israel-Hamas war began, UNRWA played a key role in distributing food, medicine and other aid to Palestinians during the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The agency’s schools were converted into shelters hosting displaced Palestinians.

That changed after last year’s ban, which severely hobbled the U.N. agency’s efforts in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel stopped providing new visas for UNRWA staff members to travel to Israel and Gaza; as a result, its East Jerusalem offices are now largely vacant.

Israel accuses Hamas, which seized full control of Gaza in 2007, of extensively infiltrating UNRWA. The Israeli military has said more than 10 percent of the group’s employees are members of Hamas and other armed groups, without providing evidence.

An UNRWA spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Founded in 1949, UNRWA serves Palestinians displaced by the wars surrounding the founding of Israel, as well as their descendants. More than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were forced from their homes in what became Israel, and the agency grants refugee status to them and their descendants, who now number about six million.

Israeli officials have bristled at both the existence of a special agency for Palestinians and allowing their children and grandchildren to also claim the status of refugees. They have long argued that UNRWA perpetuates the conflict by tacitly encouraging Palestinians to seek a right of return to Israel.

UNRWA’s role was particularly pronounced in Gaza, where the agency said it had registered more than 1.5 million people as refugees. Its schools and health clinics — as well as the salaries paid to its employees — provided a modicum of stability in the impoverished enclave.

Since Israel began leveling its accusations, the agency has denied that it has been compromised, saying that it even regularly shared its employee rosters with Israel.

Israeli officials also accused at least 19 UNRWA employees of participating in the 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. A subsequent U.N. inquiry found that at least nine employees may have participated in the assault, leading to their dismissal. The organization employs about 12,000 people in the Gaza Strip.

In October, the International Court of Justice ordered the Israeli government not to interfere with UNRWA’s work in the West Bank and Gaza. The court told Israel to “agree to and facilitate” attempts to provide aid there “by all means at its disposal” — including UNRWA.

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