At the end of last month, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) — the main humanitarian organization for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, and across the Middle East — found itself in uncharted waters. In October, the Israeli Knesset had passed two laws targeting the agency, which came into effect on Jan. 30. The first banned the agency from operating in East Jerusalem, where UNRWA runs schools, health clinics, and vocational training centers and maintains one of its headquarters. The second severed ties between Israel and UNRWA and prohibited Israeli authorities from contacting the agency; without being able to coordinate with Israeli officials, UNRWA warned that it could be forced to halt all of its livesaving work in the West Bank and Gaza, where it remains the largest provider of aid.

The immediate impact of Israel’s ban was to evict UNRWA’s international staff from the occupied Palestinian territories, as their visas were shortened to expire just before the laws took effect. Meanwhile, Adalah and Gisha, two legal organizations inside Israel, have filed a petition with the Israeli Supreme Court, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) may issue an advisory opinion about the two Israeli laws in the coming days.

Yet despite the ban and significant funding cuts to the agency, Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s Commissioner-General, told +972 that agency continues its essential work, even in East Jerusalem. In Gaza, the agency has distributed food to more than 1.9 million Palestinians during the ceasefire and has also resumed its teaching both online and onsite, albeit on a limited scale. In the West Bank, UNRWA’s schools and health centers remain open, although its activities have been severely hampered by the ongoing Israeli military operation in northern refugee camps.

Lazzarini, who has led the agency for five years, has been barred from entering Gaza since March 2024, and from entering Israel and the West Bank since June 2024. In an interview with +972 and Local Call, he framed the ongoing Israeli attacks on UNRWA — which, in addition to the legislation, have included a government-led effort to discredit the agency as infiltrated by Hamas — as not just as part of an assault on Palestinian refugees and the right of return, but as an attack “on Palestinian history and identity.”

If UNRWA ceases to exist, he warns, the issue of Palestinian refugees will not disappear. Instead, the region will face catastrophic consequences, with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians across the occupied territories left without access to education and healthcare. This, he argues, would create a vacuum no one could fill.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What is happening regarding UNRWA’s activities and operations in Gaza and in the West Bank? How exactly have they been impacted by the law prohibiting Israeli authorities from contacting UNRWA?

For the time being, all our activities are ongoing. In Gaza, we started [the latest round of] a large-scale polio vaccination campaign. Since the start of the ceasefire until last week, UNRWA teams have reached more than 1.9 million people with food parcels. We continue to provide primary health consultations, 17,000 a day on average. We have also rehabilitated and erected additional health care centers — especially in northern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people have returned – alongside our efforts to repair local water pump infrastructure.

UNRWA continues to provide psychosocial support to tens of thousands of kids in Gaza, and we have also launched some in person educational initiatives. They are very limited, of course, and aren’t the normal programs, but we are trying to bring children back together. These are taking place in 86 temporary learning spaces in 40 UNRWA schools-turned-shelters, where children are learning languages and math, getting psychosocial support, and participating in many recreational activities like arts, music and sports.

Last month, we launched a new distance learning program to further mitigate learning loss among displaced Palestinian children.To date, 251,691 children have enrolled and participated in basic Arabic, English, mathematics, and science classes. When my colleagues suggested that we start with online learning, I asked them how this would even be possible. They told me, “you will see,” and in fact they were right.

The reopening of our schools depends on so many factors: whether the ceasefire holds and whether we can build on the second phase, what kind of rehabilitation or reconstruction will take place in Gaza and what will we be allowed to do. Today we cannot repossess our schools, so instead, we have to find creative ways to bring children together. If the reconstruction of Gaza would start tomorrow, the optimistic estimation is a timeframe of two years until all the displaced people sheltering in the remaining schools can leave. Only then would we start rehabilitation.

In the West Bank, we do not have any remaining international staff, but our schools and health centers are still open, apart from the areas where the Israeli army is operating right now. In the Jenin refugee camp, for example, our activities and operations have been suspended since December, first because of the PA operation and later because of the Israeli army operation. Around 40,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in refugee camps in the north;  we are tracking them and continue to provide them with much needed food, health care, and basic supplies to keep them warm.

Our interpretation is that the [Israeli] laws do not prevent UNRWA’s activities and provision of services to Palestinians in the West Bank. We have never received anything in writing [from the Israeli government] stating otherwise, or informing us about how the laws will be implemented.

What is the situation in East Jerusalem, where Israel has banned UNRWA from operating?

On Feb. 18, Israeli police officers, accompanied by staff from the Ministry of Education, showed up at three UNRWA schools in East Jerusalem and ordered their closure. On the same day, Israeli police and personnel from the Jerusalem Municipality forcefully entered the UNRWA Qalandia Training Center, fired tear gas and sound bombs, and ordered its immediate evacuation. We had to suspend teaching on that day in these four UNRWA facilities, but resumed the following day.

Today, children are going to both the vocational training center and the UNRWA schools in East Jerusalem, with about 80 percent of normal attendance so far. Our health centers are still open for consultation and we treat a few hundred people on a daily basis.

Israel has claimed that 19 UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7 attacks, and that Hamas is using UNRWA facilities in the Gaza Strip and has recruited some 100 UNRWA employees. Following these allegations, the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) — the highest investigative body in the UN system —conducted an investigation. Can you elaborate on its conclusions, which were published in August? Is UNRWA still investigating the accusation about the 100 UNRWA employees who Israel says are members of Hamas?

The conclusion of the OIOS investigation was that nine UNRWA staff members may have been involved in the attacks of October 7. If we can corroborate or authenticate the information, there are grounds to pursue an investigation and criminal action. [Upon the release of the investigation, a UN spokesperson noted that “since information used by Israeli officials to support the allegations have remained in Israeli custody, OIOS was not able to independently authenticate most of the information provided to it.”] 

I decided that in the case of these nine staff members, they cannot work for UNRWA: all contracts of these staff members were terminated. I was asked by others, “How can you take such a drastic decision without having the proof? You might even lose if any of these staff take cases to an administrative tribunal.” But this decision was in the best interest of the agency, whose priority is to continue lifesaving and critical services for Palestine Refugees in Gaza and across the region.

Regarding the 100 UNRWA employees, we have repeatedly asked the Israeli government for information. We cannot open an investigation just on the basis of a list of names submitted to us if there is no substantiated information. I have even asked some member states who might have privileged information to share it with us to allow us to open an investigation. We have never received any of this.

It’s very important to mention that UNRWA has been sharing the names of all of its employees in the occupied Palestinian territories with the government of Israel for nearly two decades.

There is also the report by Catherine Colonna, the former French Minister of Foreign Affairs, which the UN commissioned in January 2024 after Israel first accused UNRWA staff of participating in the October 7 attacks. It concluded that “UNRWA has a more developed approach to neutrality than other similar UN or NGO entities,” but it also raised some reservations about the increased politicization among your staff, the neutrality of UNRWA installations, as well as some concerns over the content of the textbooks taught at UNRWA schools. You endorsed the conclusions of the report — can you explain why, and how the agency has tried to implement them?

One of the main conclusions of the Colonna report was indeed that we have systems [for maintaining political neutrality] which are more robust than anyone else. But because of the incredible footprint the agency has across the region, and because of how everything is deeply politicized, it is important that we be even more vigilant. And hence there have been a number of recommendations that we have decided to embrace from day one. Some recommendations would require the support of host countries, especially on the issue of textbooks. We are about to launch a website where anyone can track the implementation of the recommendations.

Since October 2023, however, the attack on the agency has been an [Israeli] war objective.  We heard, right from the beginning of the war, that “Hamas is Gaza, Gaza is Hamas. And UNRWA is Gaza, UNRWA is Hamas, so we also have to get rid of UNRWA.” UNRWA was mentioned quite a lot in some of the submissions to the ICJ [in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, which relied in part on UNRWA data]. And then [as a result], a real concerted, organized effort to undermine and discredit the agency started to take place. Diplomatically, Israel has tried to convince donor countries to suspend their support to the agency. Politically, on social media, we are lynched on a daily basis. There are even advertisement campaigns being funded by the [Israeli] Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And all this culminated in the famous two bills, now passed into law. 

I acknowledge that we are not operating in a zero-risk environment. The issue of neutrality breaches within the organization can be addressed whenever there is substantiated information. The real motivation [behind the allegations against UNRWA] we heard from the authors of the bills themselves: they say that this is a once in a generation opportunity to get rid of UNRWA, which they believe is perpetuating Palestinians’ refugee status and hence the issue of the right of return. I mean, you just put all the dots together and that’s being openly said, regularly.

I also want to remind you that we had very difficult relations with Hamas, who did not particularly like UNRWA. They did not like the fact that we had a human rights curriculum in our classes. They did not like our code of ethics promoting gender equality. They did not like our summer camp where hundreds of thousands of kids came, mixing girls and boys, doing art, sports and music. Hamas also opposed gender parity, both in our staffing in Gaza and in our schools: more than half of the children in our schools are girls and more than half of our workforce, including teachers, are women. We have been regularly accused by [Hamas] of working for the occupier [Israel].

How can you explain that many countries immediately and very quickly froze aid to UNRWA after Israel’s allegations in January 2024? Many of them restored the aid after a few months, but some countries — including your own, Switzerland, as well as the United States — still insist on suspending their support.

At first, these [aid freezes] were temporary decisions taken as a precaution. Very quickly, around six weeks after [Israel made its accusations], every donor country except for the United States started to unfreeze aid. The current U.S. administration is the same one that cut UNRWA funding in the past, and has confirmed that there will be no funding going forward. 

Sweden, which officially announced its financial suspension in December, will continue to support us politically through UN General Assembly resolutions, but will give priority for funding to other organizations. This is a domestic sovereign decision. In my own country [Switzerland], lawmakers are leaning towards suspending financial support to UNRWA, but they haven’t yet made a final decision. Last year, we succeeded in increasing  contributions from Arab countries, from the Global South, and also from ordinary individuals. But it has notcompensated for the immense shortfall of the United States — whose contribution in 2023 was more than $350 million.

How do you respond to Israeli politicians who have claimed, long before October 7, that UNRWA is maintaining the refugee problem and the right of return?

That is like saying that humanitarian assistance is perpetuating a war. No, if a war is perpetuated, it’s because of the absence of a political solution. UNRWA was created 75 years ago to provide human development services to Palestinian refugees, one of the most destitute communities across the region, and was supposed to be a temporary organization. And over the last 15 years, the entire political process has been stalled, to the extent that even addressing the Palestinian question was not on the domestic agenda in Israel during at least four or five rounds of elections. 

Today, after this horrible seismic shock in the region that has deeply traumatized both Israelis and Palestinians, maybe it’s time to have a genuine commitment to find a political solution and to address the Palestinian question once and for all. Let’s have a time-bound political process, during which UNRWA focuses not only on delivering what we do the best — education, primary health care, social safety net services — but at the same time also contributes to building the capacity of future Palestinian institutions who would be empowered to take over these activities as part of a political solution. I believe that an agency like ours has no reason to be perpetuated.

I also think it’s a mistake to say that if UNRWA disappears, the refugee status issue will be addressed. It won’t be addressed and it will only put more pressure on lasting solutions such as return or resettlement. UNRWA is tasked with focusing on human development and leaves the political solution to UN Member States.

So one might claim that the existence of UNRWA is an Israeli interest in a way.

I do believe so. Let’s say we implode tomorrow. [Israel] would have no alternative [to our services], and it would create a vacuum, with even more suffering and misery. This is the best way to sow seeds for even more extremism on its doorstep. And it would also provoke shockwaves in every country in the region who has their own domestic fragilities. So I do believe it is really in the interest of the region, including Israel, to have an orderly end, which will take place within a political process.

But UNRWA is also facing the opposite criticism: some say that Israel is definitely benefitting from UNRWA’s role as an instrument of containment.

The accusation of containment is one that we heard more in the past, but a bit less today. There were also people saying that we allow Israel to have a cheaper occupation by providing the services that we do.

But today we’re talking about a completely different situation, where there is an active desire and determination [by Israel] to get rid of the agency. We have 600,000 girls and boys in Gaza who want to return to their education. If you get rid of the only remaining resource in Gaza, who can do this, what is the alternative we are offering to them? What will be their future? In the rubble, with the trauma, this is a perfectly fertile ground for [recruiting them] to any type of armed group in the future.

Do you see the attack on UNRWA as part of a larger attack on Palestinian refugeehood? We are seeing today what’s going on in the refugee camps in the north of the West Bank: the Israeli Minister of Defense said that he will not allow people to return to Nur Al-Shams, Jenin, or Tulkarem refugee camps. And of course in Gaza refugee camps were heavily attacked.

I think the attack on UNRWA is also part of an attack on Palestinian history, on Palestinian identity, because of what we represent for the Palestinians. I think later on we will really comprehend the scope of the intent of these attacks.

But you feel that refugee camps are targeted especially?

As for what Israel is doing now in the West Bank, I would say yes. In Gaza, at the beginning, we did not necessarily see that refugee camps were targeted specifically. Jabalia refugee camp was completely destroyed, but so were many other neighborhoods in Gaza.

And let’s say that the Israeli dream is fulfilled and UNRWA ceases to exist tomorrow. What do you think are the repercussions of dismantling UNRWA ?

I think in the West Bank [the collapse of UNRWA] would further weaken the Palestinian Authority or even push the PA to implosion. I don’t necessarily see the PA in the position to step into the void that would be created were the agency to disappear. On a more political note, I believe that getting rid of UNRWA is another way to further weaken the aspiration of the Palestinian cause for self determination.

Is it possible that Israel’s recent attacks on the UNRWA have drawn more attention to the issue of Palestinian refugeehood? In other words, have the attacks on UNRWA backfired on Israel?

I don’t feel that it is getting more attention, but I think there is more understanding that the Palestinian refugee issue, as a political issue, will not be resolved if you get rid of the agency — and the problem might even deepen. We should really think twice before getting rid of an extraordinary asset the international community has put in place for the Palestinian refugees.

You spoke a lot in the last couple of months about UNRWA being viable for a political transition.But as you noted, since long before October 7, there has been no real political process — and now the Palestinian political leadership is as divided as ever. How do you see a political process emerging with the current Israeli government?

There are not many processes for the time being, but there is one which is currently led by Saudi Arabia and supported by the European Union and the Arab League, which basically is an attempt to revitalize the Arab peace initiative from 20 years ago. We also keep hearing that normalization is still an objective, in Israel but also in the region. If that is the case, a lasting normalization between Israel and a number of countries of the region also has to address the Palestinian question.

I keep saying to colleagues that I prefer to see the glass 1 percent full than 99 percent empty. And I hope that soon I can see the glass 5 or 10 percent full, but I’m aware that I cannot be naively optimistic when we know the extraordinary difficulties in the region that the people are confronted with.

But when I talk about the political process, UNRWA should be seen as an asset: helping to prepare the ground for future Palestinian institutions. Our staff are primarily public-like civil servant staff, teachers, nurses, and so on. We are different from any other UN agency because the salary scale of our staff is aligned with the host country — the Palestinian Authority — and with that of the United Nations. Why? Because we still have, despite all these decades, the end goal that our employees will become the manpower [to staff] future institutions.

A version of this article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.