EL Condemns Israel’s Ban on UNRWA

European Left Condemns Israel’s Ban on UNRWA, Calls for EU Action

The European Left condemns Israel’s recent ban on the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), describing it as an unjust attack on critical humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. This ban disrupts essential food, healthcare, and educational services that sustain vulnerable communities under occupation. Israel’s decision violates international humanitarian law and risks worsening an already severe humanitarian crisis. We urge the EU and the U.S. to hold Israel accountable and consider suspending agreements with Israel until it complies with international law. Global inaction amounts to complicity—only decisive international pressure can ensure a just and lasting peace for both Israelis and Palestinians.

Statement:
The European Left is appalled by and firmly condemns the Israeli parliament’s decision to ban the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. –  UNRWA in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
The Israeli government should be grateful to UN Refugee Agency (UNRWA). After all, the UN has been performing the tasks for which an occupying power is responsible for decades.
According to international humanitarian law, the duties of an occupying power include the humane treatment of the local population. This explicitly includes the fulfillment of their basic needs for food, the operation of educational institutions, ensuring the existence and operation of medical services and much more.
Now, the aid provided by UNRWA as a substitute is being banned. This makes it impossible for the Palestinian population in Gaza to survive and puts the people in the West Bank at risk.
We also stress that UNRWA’s headquarters are located in East Jerusalem, therefore not on Israeli territory in accordance with international law. Therefore, the parliamentary decision with which Israel is preventing the United Nations from helping the desperate people in the Gaza Strip is illegal in at least two respects.
To deny aid for suffering people is barbaric and unacceptable. Anyone who remains silent now, or who protests only half-heartedly, makes themselves an accomplice to genocide.
One thing is clear: there is no alternative to the work that UNRWA has been doing for 75 years. No other organization can take over these tasks in time: only UNRWA has the infrastructure and the experience to provide the necessary aid effectively.
We agree with the verdict of many international aid organizations that warn: the ban on UNRWA is tantamount to a death sentence for the population in the Gaza Strip.
The European Left calls on the EU to uphold international law. Inaction is a form of complicity with the crimes committed by the Netanyahu government.
The European Union and the USA must finally clearly contradict the repeated violations of international law and exert decisive pressure on the Israeli government.
The EU must finally take concrete action and suspend the association agreement with the State of Israel until it respects international law. 
Only the application of international law and UN resolutions will enable a just and lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

On behalf of Claudia Haydt, Vice President of the Party of the European Left.