JERUSALEM: As a law banning the UN agency for Palestinian refugees from operating on Israeli territory is set to take effect, the future of the vital services it offers is shrouded in uncertainty.
Israeli politicians have accused UNRWA of being linked to Palestinian militants, and in October voted to ban it. The order will come into force at the end of January.
Lawmakers have celebrated the legislation as a political victory, but it has raised questions about what would replace the work of the crucial aid agency.
UNRWA operates across the Middle East, particularly in Palestinian refugee camps.
The areas that would likely be affected by the Israeli ban are the Palestinian territories — the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
UNRWA provides education, sanitation and health services, and has been the main agency coordinating aid during the Gaza war.
The legislation bans Israeli officials from working with UNRWA and outlaws its activities “on Israeli territory,” which under Israeli law would include east Jerusalem, occupied and annexed by Israel in 1967.
UNRWA has a large compound in east Jerusalem and works in the Shuafat refugee camp there.
According to Jonathan Fowler, a spokesman for the agency, 750 children attend UNRWA schools in east Jerusalem, while it conducts 8,000 medical consultations each year for patients who have no access to other options.
In the Gaza Strip, devastated by more than 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas, the agency employs 13,000 people and coordinates the humanitarian response for other organizations, which means it is regularly in contact with the Israeli authorities.
In the West Bank, UNRWA provides services for hundreds of thousands of people living in refugee camps.
To operate in the territory, the agency must coordinate with an Israeli defense ministry agency.
Under the Israeli law, UNRWA must cease its operations in east Jerusalem and vacate all its buildings by January 30, Israeli ambassador to the UN Danny Danon wrote in a letter to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday.
Apart from that letter, “no one knows what is going to happen,” said Fowler.
“We will continue everything we can while awaiting further details. We are not giving up.”
Emphasising the uncertainty that surrounds the agency, Fowler said it wasn’t clear whether UNRWA staff passing through Israeli checkpoints across the West Bank could “be considered contact with the Israeli authorities” and therefore banned.
He said that during Israeli military raids, UNRWA staff have maintained contact with Israeli officials to protect the people it serves, especially children in refugee camps.
“If we lose that contact, that would be a big problem,” he said. “It is very dangerous.”
In the Gaza Strip, UNRWA “provides logistical support” for other UN agencies and remains “the backbone of UN operations on the ground,” said Muhannad Hadi, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for the Middle East, recently returned from Gaza.
Replacing UNRWA, therefore, is seen as impossible, even though beneficiaries and NGOs have been searching for alternatives for weeks.
Human rights group Adalah petitioned the Israeli supreme court on January 15, in the name of 10 Palestinian refugees, arguing that the legislation banning UNRWA “violates fundamental human rights and Israel’s obligations under international law.”
Fowler said that “under international law, it is incumbent on an occupying power to ensure the well-being... of an occupied population.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent on Thursday said it “absolutely” rejected the idea of replacing UNRWA “despite ongoing attempts by various parties” to convince it to take on the UN agency’s work or receive funds that currently go to the agency.
It said “the most recent of these attempts was by the Israeli health ministry which sought to hand over UNRWA’s Bab Al-Zawiya clinic in Jerusalem to the (Red Crescent) in exchange for financial support — a proposal that the Society categorically rejected.”
Some have suggested that UNRWA’s mission be taken over by foreign governments or other UN agencies.
Some UN staff, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said that their organizations lacked both the human and material resources to replace UNRWA.
Other UN agencies “don’t have the capacity, on the ground, to do the distribution like we do,” said Fowler.
COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry agency overseeing civilian affairs in Palestinian territories, has repeatedly said that it works with other organizations, UN agencies and NGOs to organize the humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip.
What to know about Israel’s ban on UN agency for Palestinians
https://arab.news/pbm6z
What to know about Israel’s ban on UN agency for Palestinians
- Replacing UNRWA, therefore, is seen as impossible, even though beneficiaries and NGOs have been searching for alternatives for weeks
UAE and Gates Foundation launch $500m maternal health fund for Africa
The Beginnings Fund was launched on Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, the home of another key backer — the United Arab Emirates’ recently established Mohamed Bin Zayed Foundation for Humanity. The project has been in the works for at least a year. But its role has become more important as governments worldwide follow the US in pulling back from international aid, its chief executive Alice Kang’ethe told Reuters in an interview.
“It is an opportune moment,” she said earlier this month, stressing that the fund aimed to work alongside African governments, experts and organizations rather than parachuting in experts or technologies, an approach she said differed from many traditional donor programs.
“Two generations ago... women in the UAE used to die during childbirth. More than half of children did not survive past childhood,” said Tala Al Ramahi at the Mohamed Bin Zayed Foundation, saying the lessons learned in what worked to change those outcomes would help inform the effort.
The Beginnings Fund aims to save the lives of 300,000 mothers and newborn babies by 2030, and expand quality care for 34 million mothers and babies.
The partners also pledged $100 million in direct investments in maternal and child health, separate to the fund.
It plans to operate in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Lesotho, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, focusing on low-cost interventions and personnel in high-burden hospitals. The work will track and target the key reasons babies and mothers die, including infection, severe bleeding for mothers, and respiratory distress for infants. The world has made major progress in reducing newborn and maternal deaths, halving the neonatal mortality rate between 1990 and 2022. But that progress has stagnated or even reversed in nearly all regions in the last few years, according to the World Health Organization, which has warned that aid cuts could make this worse.
“Mothers and newborns should not be dying from causes we know how to prevent,” said Dr. Mekdes Daba, minister of health for Ethiopia, stressing that the majority of deaths are avoidable.
Kang’ethe said the Beginnings Fund, like other philanthropies, was getting calls to fill gaps in global aid funding, but remained focused on its long-term aim of changing the trajectory of mother and newborn survival.
The fund is also backed by the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, Delta Philanthropies and the ELMA Foundation, among others. It will be led from Nairobi, Kenya.
Israel government revokes decision to fire security chief: court document
- The decision comes a day after security chief Ronen Bar announced he would stand on June 15
JERUSALEM: Israel’s government said Tuesday it had canceled its decision to fire domestic security chief Ronen Bar, a move which had been frozen by the country’s top court and triggered mass protests.
“The government has decided to revoke its decision of March 20, 2025” to sack Bar, it said in a document submitted to the Supreme Court, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.
The government’s latest decision comes a day after Bar announced he would stand on June 15, following weeks of tension with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Jordanian mobile bakery provides 390,000 loaves a week for Palestinians in Gaza
- It is one of the few bakeries in the territory still able to serve the population of almost 2m Palestinians
- It operates 19 hours a day and is working with World Central Kitchen, which distributes the bread to families across the war-torn territory
LONDON: A Jordanian mobile bakery is providing hundreds of thousands of loaves each week for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, as Israel continues a blockade that has prevented aid from entering the territory since mid-March.
The bakery is one of the few in Gaza that remain operational, helping to provide food for nearly 2 million Palestinians amid an acute flour shortage that has forced most surviving bakeries to close.
Operating 19 hours a day, it produced about 390,000 loaves of bread in the past week alone as it continues to serve the urgent food needs of the population, despite restricted access resulting from the ongoing Israeli attacks, the Jordan News Agency reported.
The bakery is working with World Central Kitchen, an international organization that helps provide meals to the people of Gaza, which said it is distributing the bread to families across the war-torn territory, including difficult-to-reach places.
The Jordanian bakery, which was sent to Gaza in December, can produce about 3,500 loaves per hour, or about 75,000 a day. It forms part of Jordan’s ongoing efforts to provide medical and other humanitarian aid to the territory.
World Central Kitchen affirmed its commitment to supporting the people of Gaza during this critical period. Seven of the organization’s aid workers were killed by an Israeli drone strike in April last year.
Will a weakened Hezbollah in Lebanon disarm?
- Hezbollah is severely weakened after a war with Israel in which much of its top leadership was killed
- Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun has said he is committed to bringing all arms in the country under state control
BEIRUT: Israel’s latest airstrike on what it called a Hezbollah missile storage facility in Beirut’s southern suburbs came during increasing pressure for the Lebanese militant group to disarm.
The disarmament of what has been the region’s most powerful non-state armed group has come to look increasingly inevitable. Hezbollah is severely weakened after a war with Israel in which much of its top leadership was killed, and after losing a key ally with the fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad, a conduit for Iran to send arms.
Israel and the US are pushing for swift disarmament, but when and how it will happen — if it does — is contested.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun has said he is committed to bringing all arms in the country under state control, but that it will happen through discussions around a national security plan and not through force.
Many fear that an attempt to force the issue would lead to civil conflict, which Aoun has called a “red line.”
Hezbollah officials have said in principle that they are willing to discuss the group’s arsenal, but leader Naim Qassem said in a speech earlier this month that any serious discussions are contingent on Israel withdrawing its forces from territory they occupy in southern Lebanon and halting near-daily airstrikes.
“The Lebanese have to strike a delicate balance” on disarmament, said Aram Nerguizian, a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Go too slow ... and you will lose internal momentum and international legitimacy. Go too fast and you get accused by a still-hurting and battered Shia community” — who make up most of Hezbollah’s constituency — “of acting as a proxy for Israel, while risking Hezbollah remnants ... waging an insurgency against the Lebanese government.”
What would disarmament look like?
After Lebanon’s 15-year civil war ended in 1990, the country went through a process of disarming most of the militias that had taken part. Hezbollah was the exception, given special status as a “resistance force” fighting against Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon at the time.
Aoun has outlined his vision of a similar disarmament process. Former Hezbollah fighters could apply to join the Lebanese army as individuals, the president said. Weapons deemed “usable” by the army would become part of its arsenal, while those deemed “unusable” would be destroyed.
Nerguizian said that more than 90 percent of Hezbollah’s “sophisticated and heavy weapons” — which once included tens of thousands of missiles and drones — are believed to have been destroyed already, the vast majority of them by Israel.
What remains, he said, would not be compatible with the Lebanese army’s arsenal, which is largely Western-supplied, while Hezbollah uses Iranian, Russian and Chinese-made weapons.
Nerguizian said it is unlikely that large numbers of Hezbollah’s tens of thousands of fighters would be incorporated into the army because their ideology has not been compatible as a paramilitary force that has largely been “tied to the preferences of Iran.”
Retired Lebanese army Gen. Hassan Jouni agreed that much of Hezbollah’s arsenal would not be easily integrated but said the post-civil war era provides a precedent for integrating fighters.
After going through training, “they become like any other soldier,” he said. While there might be a “religious and ideological obstacle” for some Hezbollah fighters, “I do not think this is the case for everyone.”
Ibrahim Mousawi, a member of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, told The Associated Press that “everything is open for discussion.”
“We don’t want to jump into discussing the details,” he said. “This is something that is being left in the hands of the president and the Hezbollah leadership to deal with.”
Mousawi said the destruction of Hezbollah’s arsenal “shouldn’t be acceptable to Lebanon.”
The cash-strapped Lebanese army has struggled to maintain its aging arsenal. In recent years, it has turned to the US and Qatar to help pay soldiers’ salaries.
“We are part of the Lebanese strength,” Mousawi said. ”If the Americans are really keen to show us that they really respect Lebanon and they care for the Lebanese, ... why don’t they equip the Lebanese army with defensive weapons?”
When might disarming occur?
US envoy Morgan Ortagus said earlier this month in an interview broadcast on Lebanese channel LBCI that Hezbollah should be disarmed “as soon as possible.”
A Lebanese diplomat said there is ongoing pressure from the Americans on that front. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
Hezbollah’s stance that it will not discuss giving up its armed wing before Israel withdraws from five key border points in southern Lebanon appears likely to drag out the process. Israeli officials have said that they plan to remain there indefinitely to secure their border and guard against any ceasefire violations by Hezbollah.
Israeli officials did not respond to a request for comment on the issue of Lebanon’s army integrating former Hezbollah weapons and fighters.
Lebanese officials say that the Israeli presence violates the ceasefire agreement in November, under which Israel and Hezbollah were supposed to withdraw their forces from southern Lebanon, with the Lebanese army taking control alongside UN peacekeepers.
The Lebanese diplomat said that US officials had acknowledged that Israeli forces remaining in the five border points constituted an “occupation” but had not put strong pressure on Israel to withdraw quickly.
A “smart way to break the deadlock” and avoid further escalation is for Washington to increase its support for the Lebanese army and push Israel to withdraw, said Bilal Saab, a former Pentagon official and senior managing director of the Washington-based TRENDS US consulting firm.
Retired Lebanese army Gen. Elias Hanna said he believes that Hezbollah is “still in the phase of denial” regarding the diminution of its military and political clout.
He said disarmament needs to take place as part of broader discussions about Lebanon’s military doctrine and strategy. The Lebanese army could benefit from the experience of Hezbollah, which for many years maintained deterrence with Israel before the latest war, he said.
Saab said he believes the outcome is not in doubt.
“Hezbollah has a choice,” he said. “Either lay down its arms or have them removed by Israeli force.”
Syrian-American Jews visit Damascus synagogue
- Visiting Rabbi Henry Hamra led prayers at the Faranj synagogue in Damascus’s Old City
- On a recent visit to New York, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani met with members of the Syrian Jewish community
DAMASCUS: A group of Syrian-American Jews prayed in a synagogue in Damascus on Tuesday, an AFP photographer reported, the latest such visit following the fall of longtime ruler Bashar Assad.
The trip comes after local community leader Bakhour Chamntoub said unknown assailants broke into and desecrated the tomb of a 17th-century rabbi in Damascus last week.
Visiting Rabbi Henry Hamra led prayers at the Faranj synagogue in Damascus’s Old City.
His father Yusuf Hamra was reportedly the last rabbi to leave Syria, one of thousands of members of the Jewish community to depart in the 1990s.
They had both visited from the United States in February.
Victor Kamil, a Syrian Jew from New York, said the latest trip sought to “prepare the synagogues, to prepare the community here for people at least to start visiting,” expressing hope that an improvement in the situation in Syria would encourage returns.
“We are very proud Syrian Jews — our kids know we are very proud and they will definitely love this heritage and this history,” he added.
Syria’s centuries-old Jewish community was able to practice their religion under former president Hafez Assad, but the strongman prevented them from leaving the country until 1992.
After that, their numbers plummeted from around 5,000 at the time to just a handful now.
On Monday, the group prayed at the Damascus tomb of 17th-century Rabbi Chaim Vital, Kamil said.
Community leader Chamntoub said Friday that unidentified individuals “dug up the ground next to the grave in search of antiquities,” adding that local authorities had inspected the site and vowed to find those responsible.
The Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States said over the weekend it was “deeply shocked and saddened” by the desecration.
“We urgently call on the Syrian government to immediately secure Jewish holy sites, synagogues and cemeteries and ensure their safety” and security, the statement added.
Kamil said that “we are trying to figure out if... the bones of the rabbi were touched or moved,” adding that the incident would not affect the importance of the site.
After Islamist-led forces overthrew Assad in December, the new authorities have sought to reassure minorities that they will be protected.
But last month saw sectarian massacres on the Alawite coast, and tensions were high on Tuesday after deadly sectarian clashes in a Damascus suburb.
On a recent visit to New York, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani met with members of the Syrian Jewish community, discussing “the importance of strengthening bridges of communication and understanding,” Syrian state news agency SANA said.
