UN chief warns he could refer Israel to ICJ over laws targetting UNRWA

UN chief warns he could refer Israel to ICJ over laws targetting UNRWA In October 2024, Israel passed a law banning the agency for Palestinian refugees in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he could take his country to the International Court of Justice if it does not repeal laws targeting the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) and return its seized assets and property. In a January 8 letter to Netanyahu, Guterres said the UN cannot remain indifferent to “actions taken by Israel, which are in direct contravention of the obligations of Israel under international law. They must be reversed without delay.” Recommended Stories list of 3 items list 1 of 3 Israel advances ‘fatal’ settlement plan for occupied East Jerusalem list 2 of 3 ‘We just sit and cry’: Gaza’s cancer patients die waiting for treatment list 3 of 3 Israeli strikes kill Palestinians across Gaza Israel’s parliament passed a law in October 2024 banning UNRWA from operating in Israel and prohibiting Israeli officials from having contact with the agency. It then amended the law last month to ban electricity or water to UNRWA facilities. Israeli authorities also seized UNRWA’s occupied East Jerusalem offices last month. The UN considers East Jerusalem occupied by Israel. Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be part of the country. Guterres said that UNRWA is “an integral part of the United Nations”, and highlighted that “Israel remains under an obligation to accord UNRWA and its personnel the privileges and immunities specified in the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN”. The convention states that “the premises of the United Nations shall be inviolable”. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, dismissed Guterres’s letter to Netanyahu. “We are not fazed by the Secretary-General’s threats,” Danon said in a post on X on Tuesday. “Instead of dealing with the undeniable involvement of UNRWA personnel in terrorism, the Secretary-General chooses to threaten Israel. This is not defending international law, this is defending an organization marred by terrorism,” he added. Israel has long sought the dissolution of UNRWA, which was created by the UN General Assembly in 1949 following the war surrounding the founding of Israel. It has since provided aid, health and education to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Israel has alleged that a dozen of the agency’s employees were involved in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, in which 1,139 people were killed, and about 240 were taken into Gaza as captives. In response to the attack, Israel launched a devastating genocidal war against the Palestinian people of Gaza, killing more than 71,400, according to Gaza’s health authorities. The UN has said that nine UNRWA staff who may have been involved in the Hamas-led attack on Israel have been fired. A Hamas commander in Lebanon, killed in September by Israel, was also found to have had a UNRWA job. The...

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