Israeli MP behind bill to expel key UN agency accuses US of interfering in process

CNN
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An Israeli lawmaker behind a bill that would prevent the main UN agency from working in Gaza and the West Bank Israel has accused the US ambassador to Israel of lobbying opposition leaders to block the move.

If passed by Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, this week, the bill will ban any Israeli official from providing services or doing business with employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency and UNRWA to operate in Israel.

Several countries, including the US, have expressed concern about the bill’s impact.

The Israeli government has claimed that some of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff are affiliated with Hamas. UNRWA has strongly denied the allegations, but several governments suspended funding to the organization earlier this year while the allegations were investigated.

Member of Parliament Yulia Malinovsky told CNN that US Ambassador Jacob Lew has contacted several opposition leaders, including Avigdor Lieberman, Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz, in an attempt to stop the legislation.

She described the American pressure as unacceptable.

The US State Department told CNN that it would not comment on private diplomatic conversations as a matter of policy.

But it said the proposed legislation would make it impossible for UNRWA to operate and would leave a “vacuum that Israel would then have to fill.” A spokesperson said UNRWA provided essential services in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Jordan.

UNRWA has long been the target of Israeli criticism and relations between Israel and the UN deteriorated during the war in Gaza.

Last week, Israeli Army spokesman Admiral Daniel Hagari said the IDF had killed a commander of the Hamas ‘Nukhba’ force, who had also been employed by UNRWA since July 2022.

Then, Foreign Minister Israel Katz posted on X that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres had “reached new heights of hypocrisy and insensitivity. Last night he lamented the elimination of their ‘UNRWA colleague’ by IDF forces in Gaza.”

In a letter sent earlier this month to two senior members of the Israeli government, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the Biden administration was “deeply concerned” about the possible adoption of the bill.

Malinovsky told CNN that she is determined that UNRWA should no longer receive “five-star treatment” in Israel. She says she has broad support in the Israeli parliament for the measure.

“UNRWA has colluded with Hamas, teaching children to hate Israel and spreading anti-Semitism, selling them stories that they will be able to return to Israel. This will not happen,” Malinovsky said.

UNRWA says it emphasizes the neutrality of its staff and said Israel’s charges on 66 of its 30,000 staff amounted to just 0.22% of the payroll.

“There is absolutely no basis for a blanket description of ‘the institution as a whole’ as ‘fully infiltrated,’” the agency said in May.

Most parties in the Knesset appear ready to support the bill. Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid declined to comment on private conversations, but his office told CNN that UNRWA “played an active role in the brutal massacre on October 7.” Terrorist attacks were launched against Israel from its institutions….”

Former War Cabinet member Benny Gantz posted on

On Saturday, the foreign ministers of Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Britain expressed “grave concerns” about the legislation.

They said that without the work of UNRWA, the delivery of aid “including education, health care and fuel distribution in Gaza and the West Bank would be severely hampered, if not impossible.”