Israeli bill banning UN Palestinian refugee agency 'opposed to international law': UN

By Merve Aydogan

HAMILTON, Canada (AA) - The UN on Monday expressed "profound concern" over the recent introduction of draft bills in Israel's parliament aiming to prevent the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) from continuing its operations in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza.

"Secretary General (Antonio Guterres) wrote to the Prime Minister of Israel (Benjamin Netanyahu), expressing his profound concern about those bills, about the impact they would have," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a news conference.

Dujarric stated that Israel's proposed legislation aiming to halt UNRWA activities "would be diametrically opposed to the (UN) Charter and the Israeli government's responsibility under international law."

If the bill passed, he said they would assess the impact of the bill, but their response would be "negative."

On Gaza, Dujarric stated that people in the north are in "desperate need of life saving assistance."

Citing Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), he reported that Israel continues to deny the UN's requests for food and fuel shipments to Jabalya and said that "intensive military operations" are ongoing around health facilities.

The spokesman also said that aid workers are "doing everything they can" to meet needs, but warned that ongoing impediments by Israel "are making it impossible for aid organizations to operate it anywhere near the scale that this crisis demands in southern Gaza."

He also stated that Israel announced it had completed its raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital.

Responding to Anadolu's question about possible mass graves at Kamal Adwan Hospital, similar to those found after Israeli forces withdrew from Al-Shifa and Nasser Hospitals, Dujarric said: "We don't know what we will find."

Emphasizing that UN's primary focus is on how to deliver aid to the patients remaining in the hospital, Dujarric further said that "it is clear that there will need to be accountability."

Highlighting the difficulties of access, Dujarric said, "If we're able to go and investigate, we will."

*Serife Cetin contributed to this story.