Israeli ban on Palestinian refugee agency is against int'l law: UN

The UN has expressed "profound concern" over the Israeli parliament's bill to prevent the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) from continuing its operations in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Gaza.

The bill bans the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, from conducting “any activity” or providing any service inside Israel. The vote passed 92-10.

"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 spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said at a news conference on Monday.

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

Dujarric stated that Gaza residents in the north are in "desperate need of life-saving assistance."

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

Mass graves

The spokesperson separately 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 organisations 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."

Emphasising that the 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."