United Nations chief Antonio Guterres sent a letter Tuesday to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu protesting a new law that could effectively cripple the UN agency responsible for aiding Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), his spokesman said.
Guterres outlined in his letter "the issues of international law that have been raised by this law," Stephane Dujarric said, adding that it would have a "devastating impact on the humanitarian situation of Palestinians in the occupied territory" if implemented.
Despite international concerns, including from Washington, Israeli lawmakers on Monday overwhelmingly voted to bar the agency, UNRWA, from operating in Israel and east Jerusalem.
For more than seven decades, UNRWA has provided critical support to Palestinian refugees.
It has faced mounting criticism from Israeli officials, which has escalated since the start of the war in Gaza after Hamas's October 7 attack last year, including accusations that a dozen of its employees were involved in the attack.
In recent months, the military has struck several UNRWA schools-turned-shelters where Israel said Palestinian militants were operating.
UNRWA said 230 of its staff have been killed since the beginning of the war.
Jonathan Fowler, UNRWA's spokesman in Jerusalem, called the agency the backbone of humanitarian work in the Palestinian territories, especially in Gaza.
"UNRWA is irreplaceable, UNRWA is essential. That remains a fact, whatever the legislation that was passed yesterday," Fowler, who called the law "an outrage", told AFP in an interview at the agency's compound in east Jerusalem.
With around 18,000 staff in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, including 13,000 education staff and 1,500 healthcare workers, UNRWA has delivered vital aid since 1949.
Fowler said UNRWA hopes the decision will be rescinded, and is "not in the mindset" of thinking of alternatives.
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