For 75 years, the United Nations agency known as UNRWA has been the backbone of health and education for Palestinian refugees, a population that now includes 6 million people, including 1.4 million in Gaza. In the past, whenever war broke out, the agency also provided shelter to any community seeking shelter in 300 primary schools—protected by the green flag of the United Nations.
That situation remained the norm in the early months of the current disastrous war. Then in January, Israel charged that twelve employees of UNRWA, which represents the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, were involved in the atrocities of Oct.. The allegations have had the effect of linking the organization, which has long been criticized by Israel for supporting Palestinian political aspirations, with a terrorist organization. As a result, more than 16 nations suspended donations; The US, once the main sponsor of the organization, continues to withhold funding. In October, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed two bills banning cooperation with UNRWA, which distributes most of the aid to Gazans.
If implemented, the laws would also hamper efforts to deliver food and other aid to the two million people trapped in Gaza, where the threat of famine is growing. Long term, the law aims to roll back UN aid that Israel has considered problematic since it was established to provide for the needs of the 700,000 Palestinian refugees expelled from the land that became Israel. Under UN agreements, refugees remain refugees until they return to their homeland—a paradox at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
“The Israelites got the kingdom. The Palestinians found UNRWA, “says Philippe Lazzarini – a twelve-year UN employee who in 2020 was named the 15th, and who may be the last head of an agency that has grown with the number of people it serves. The organization’s mandate includes descendants of refugees now living in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank controlled by Israel.
Lazzarini, whose humanitarian work includes a long stint with the Red Cross and whose UNRWA office is in East Jerusalem, says he has been banned from entering Israel since June. He spoke to TIME on November 12 in New York City. The interview is planned for length and clarity.
TIME: Your institution employs 32,000 people. The majority are Palestinians. How does UNRWA evaluate its staff?
LAZZARINI: Basically, it is exactly like any other UN agency. Your education certificate. You must bring a clean criminal record. We will also carry out a check on the websites of other UN agencies and look at your employment record. Every year, we send a list of our employees to the host country, including the State of Israel. From the report named Catherine Colonna [a neutrality review ordered by the U.N. in the wake of Israel’s allegations] we submit a list every quarter. We also ensure that any of our employees are fully compliant and compliant with any potential sanctions list. And with the banking system; We know that the financial system is not watertight.
Do you need to state that you are not a member of any armed organization?
That’s a very good question. You do not have to declare that you are not a member of the organization. You must announce that you will not hold public political events. I can’t force you to believe, not to believe, and so on. But you can’t have a public space or public activity, including social media. We clearly define the difference between your freedom of thought and the behavior expected of you as a public servant.
On September 30, an Israeli airstrike in Tire, Lebanon, killed Fateh Sherif and his family; Israel named him the head of Hamas in Lebanon. He was also the principal of the UNWRA school.
The famous Fateh Sherif. In March, it came to my attention that he might be a member of Hamas. That very day, I decided to suspend that person, to investigate him—suspension without pay, obviously—with the intention of, if true, firing him. [The internal investigation was still ongoing at the time of the strike.] It caused some public reaction, and they put pressure on the agency. They prevented workers from reaching the headquarters in Beirut and one or two centers that we had [refugee] camps. I went to Lebanon, and I met with all the political parties and the Lebanese authorities, and I told them that I will not tolerate any pressure of any kind—that we have suspicions, we will investigate, and if you continue, I am the best. than happy to hand over the keys to a political party. The pressure stopped.
Read more: A Palestinian Photographer Reflects on One Year of Life and Death in Gaza
However, Israel is not giving up. The Knesset bill would put you out of business in Gaza and the West Bank, right?
Aiming to dismantle an agency like UNWRA has nothing to do with issues related to neutrality. It’s all about aiming to dispossess the Palestinian of being a refugee, weakening the Palestinian desire for self-determination, and therefore also weakening the idea of a two-state solution. At the beginning of the war, when you have this figure of “Hamas equals Gaza” that paved the way for all human indignities and intolerable acts. Now you equate Hamas with Gaza and UNRWA—get rid of all three. The attack on UNRWA is not just an attack on the agency. This is an attack on everyone who promotes respect for international humanitarian law, on anyone who promotes the idea that we live in a world based on rules.
How?
When a war turns into a propaganda war or a media war, it is easy not to have international journalists on the ground. Again [Israel] I also tried to silence the unspoken voices of what is left of the UN. I personally have not been allowed to return to Gaza since January. I have not been allowed to go to Jerusalem since June. But this movement conveyed the suffering and misery of the Palestinian people, and much of it was later used to submit to the International Court of Justice. [which on Nov. 21 issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as for Hamas leader Mohammed Deif]. That is why I warn that beyond the attack on UNRWA—which aims to independently change the boundaries of political power in the case of Israel and Palestine—this is also an attack against the United Nations system and the broader rules-based order, the international system that we have. estate after World War II. If we don’t back down, sooner or later this will become the new norm. We have more than 50 conflicts happening around the world. Not doing it here will encourage others to use the same recipe.
In previous wars in Gaza, that rules-based system was firmly entrenched. UNRWA was considered a neutral body, although it always spoke on behalf of the Palestinians.
We are here to stand up for the rights of Palestinian refugees. We are the voice. Look at the situation in Gaza. Either you believe the Palestinian narrative, or you believe the Israeli narrative. So if you are a special witness of what is happening, and you see such blatant disregard for international humanitarian law, then you say what is happening. If you don’t do that, you get into a situation where people decide to believe what they want to believe.
What is interesting when looking at this argument is the unusual division. [On one side,] he has complete sympathy or empathy for what is happening in Israel, and rightly so. People have suffered deeply, they have suffered greatly. And this needs to be understood. But if you look at it only through this lens, you justify the disproportionate response in Gaza and the human tragedy we are witnessing. Or [on the other side,] if you look at the human tragedy in Gaza, and you primarily sympathize with Palestine, you say that Israel’s disproportionate response is terrible—”I can’t feel what they felt, because it’s unforgivable.” There is this lack of empathy. It fuels this division. And it is very dangerous now, in the Arab countries, in the Arab Street, or, more broadly, in the Global South.
Read more: How UNRWA Aid Helped My Whole Family Survive
He lost a lot of people.
It is unprecedented in the history of the United Nations. More than 240 workers died. It is unprecedented that more than 200 sites will be damaged or completely destroyed, and hundreds of people will die as they seek the protection of the UN symbol. We also have convoys constantly prevented from moving, or attacked despite ending the conflict.
The political faction of Hamas has been in control of Gaza since 2007. They didn’t have problems with UNRWA?
They criticize our summer camps. Our camps were very popular, very popular. We brought girls and boys together in sports, music. And they just hate it. And they were very unhappy with the latest code of conduct that we distributed to the agency, because apparently the UN code of ethics promotes diversity and gender equality and so on.
What are the practical consequences of the Knesset’s laws prohibiting any Israeli contact with UNRWA?
There are laws that after years have not been implemented. So that would be a possibility. Do we really want to throw out the baby with water? Places where we cannot be replaced by education and health. In the West Bank alone, we have 17,000 workers, 50,000 students in our schools, 400,000 people in our health care center. We stop tomorrow, those people are no longer in schools, and 400,000 people will not receive health care.
In Gaza, no one goes to school, but half of the population is under 18 years old. They live in the trash, they are very traumatized. If we break the fire tomorrow, the first priority is to find a way to get ourselves back into the learning environment. Israel does not want the Palestinian Authority there. Legally, Israel, as the governing power, is responsible for providing education.
Is this just a case of UNWRA having a problematic reputation?
If the member states of the UN believe that it is a matter of symbols, nothing should be prevented [from changing the name]. As long as the product does not weaken the future right of Palestinian refugees, that would be an option.
But it is false to believe that if the provision of services by UNWRA stops, there will be no more refugees. The issue of statehood, the status of refugees, the right of return—all these political issues will not be resolved if you make UNRWA disappear.
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