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Israelis are generally not known for their admiration of the UN, even though it is the very international organization that voted for the establishment of their state in 1947 and subsequently admitted it as a member, thereby providing it with international legitimacy.
And no single UN agency is more deplored — dare I say hated? — by the Israeli government than the UN Relief and Works Agency. It was created in 1949 as a “temporary” measure to provide humanitarian relief and assistance to Palestinians in five areas of operation: Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. It is still doing this work, with extremely impressive results under the most difficult of circumstances.
The vicious, and in most cases baseless, criticism of UNRWA by Israeli officials and their allies, mainly in the US, intensified two years ago after the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups. It came despite unequivocal condemnation of the attacks by UN leaders, including Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.
Shortly after the devastating attacks, Israel alleged that 12 of the agency’s employees had participated in them, but offered no conclusive evidence for the allegation. A UN investigation concluded that the allegation, “if authenticated and corroborated, could indicate that the UNRWA staff members may have been involved in the attacks.”
But even if the allegation was verified, and considering that the agency employs 30,000 people, 90 percent of whom are Palestinian refugees themselves, it could hardly serve as a verdict on the organization as a whole. UNRWA is an organization that for more than 75 years has been delivering education, healthcare, social assistance, protection, and other vital services to 5.9 million registered refugees in many troubled locations that suffer from constant political instability and conflict, and where the refugees do not enjoy their human rights.
These services are delivered, with unparalleled results, on a scale that might be expected of a state, without comparable state infrastructure and on a meager budget of $1.4 billion.
The irony is that Israel, as a major contributor to the creation of the issue of Palestinian refugees in the first place, and as the occupying force in the West Bank and Gaza, has a legal and moral obligation to provide the essential services UNRWA is tasked with.
But Israeli authorities want to have it both ways: to deny any responsibility for Palestinian refugees and leave it to the international community to provide for their basic needs, while simultaneously blaming the organization that is doing so for perpetuating the status of the Palestinians as refugees.
The more desperate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu becomes to blame anyone but himself for the catastrophic failures of Oct. 7, the more he looks for convenient targets to deflect from his own responsibility for failing his own people on that day.
UNRWA is an easy target because of the narrative, created in Israel, that the agency is keeping alive the right of return of Palestinian refugees. Needless to say, this is a complete fabrication. The general right of return for all refugees, wherever they are from, is enshrined in the principles of international law. 

UNRWA must not only be maintained, the international community must also allocate adequate funding so that it can fully carry out its mandate.

Yossi Mekelberg

In the specific case of Palestinian refugees, the right was reiterated in a recent report by Ian Martin, a former senior UN official tasked by the UN secretary-general to head a strategic assessment of UNRWA. The report states that the “right of return and compensation of Palestine refugees, (is) enshrined in General Assembly Resolution 194 (III), predates UNRWA’s establishment and exists independently of the agency’s mandate or continued existence.”
Martin’s thorough report sheds light on the unique nature of the contributions made by UNRWA against all the odds — and in the case of the war in Gaza, at the tragic cost of the lives of 378 of its people while they were helping to maintain some level of services in hellish conditions, in many cases also delivering life-saving assistance to people not registered as refugees.
In its endless campaign of attempts to score cheap points, including ones bound to cause damage not only to Palestinians but Israel as well, the Knesset passed two laws severing all formal relations with UNRWA, which came into force at the beginning of this year. Even worse, they banned the agency from operating, directly or indirectly, in areas Israel considers its sovereign territory, including East Jerusalem.
It was not the case that the Israeli government found its moral compass and decided to replace the services UNRWA provides with alternatives and funded provisions of its own. Instead, it left the entire situation in limbo at a time when conditions in Gaza are cataclysmic, and while in the West Bank tens of thousands of refugees in Jenin, Nur Shams, and Tulkarm have been displaced because the Israeli army destroyed their homes.
Meanwhile, UNRWA is in a deep budgetary crisis and there is a genuine fear that within a matter of months it will not be able to pay the salaries of its staff. However, as the saying goes, “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Accordingly, Martin’s strategic assessment represents a contribution of great importance.
It identifies several scenarios, based on the author’s hard-to-dispute conclusion that the financial model of UNRWA has never been sustainable, and that the same holds true for the agency’s mandate, which fails to protect it from arbitrary interference in its work.
The worst-case scenario of “inaction and potential collapse of UNRWA” would only exacerbate the humanitarian crisis, the report said, and likely “heighten social unrest and deepen regional fragility. It would represent a significant abandonment of Palestine refugees by the international community.”
Another scenario that should be cause for concern is “reduction of service,” which would also exacerbate an already troubling humanitarian situation for millions of Palestinians.
Almost by default, the most viable option — until there is a political solution that guarantees citizenship for all Palestinians and, with it, security and well-being as citizens of Palestine — is that UNRWA’s operations must be maintained in countries that currently host refugees, and within Israel for those able to exercise their right of return, and that adequate resources be provided so that it can carry out its work.
It is time that UNRWA, though imperfect, is recognized for the valuable work it does and for the great sacrifices its dedicated staff make while delivering services that no one else is prepared to provide — in too many cases, putting their own lives in danger in the process.
The continuing existence of UNRWA is the result of the failure to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict peacefully. Those who attack the agency do so to deflect attention from their own, decades-long, criminal neglect in failing to reach a peace deal.
Until such an agreement becomes reality, UNRWA must not only be maintained, the international community must also allocate adequate funding so that it can fully carry out its mandate which, in the long run, could also serve as a solid basis for the provision of public services in an independent Palestinian state.

• Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House.
X: @YMekelberg