In October 2025, Israel's Knesset passed legislation prohibiting UNRWA from operating within Israeli territory and East Jerusalem, despite warnings from the United States, European Union, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres that such action would violate international humanitarian law. The legislation took effect in January 2026.

"This is not about security concerns," said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch. "This is about systematically eliminating Palestinian institutional presence in Jerusalem and denying refugees their internationally recognized rights."

The targeting of UNRWA facilities in East Jerusalem has particular significance because the city's status remains disputed under international law. Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital and has applied Israeli law to the eastern part of the city, which it captured in 1967. The international community, including the United Nations, does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem and considers it occupied territory.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the action as "a war crime" and called for an emergency session of the UN Security Council. Jordan and Egypt, the two Arab states with peace treaties with Israel, issued statements expressing "grave concern" about the dismantling of UN facilities.

The development coincides with the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, where UNRWA has served as the primary distributor of food, medicine, and shelter to more than 1.5 million displaced people. Aid organizations have warned that eliminating UNRWA operations would create a distribution vacuum that no other organization has the capacity to fill.

"No one else has UNRWA's infrastructure, staff, or community relationships," said Jan Egeland, Secretary-General of the Norwegian Refugee Council. "Dismantling it is a choice to increase suffering."

The United States, traditionally Israel's closest ally, has remained notably silent on the East Jerusalem actions. The Biden administration had previously warned against the Knesset legislation but took no concrete steps to prevent its implementation. The incoming Trump administration has signaled even stronger support for Israeli government positions.

To understand today's headlines, we must look at yesterday's decisions. UNRWA was created as a temporary measure, a stopgap until a political settlement resolved the refugee question. Seventy-six years later, with no settlement in sight and refugee rolls expanding across generations, the agency has become a permanent feature of the regional landscape. Israel's determination to dismantle it reflects a calculation that the refugee issue can be made to disappear through institutional elimination—a proposition that history suggests is unlikely to succeed.