The Knesset Plenum on Wednesday voted to approve in first reading an amendment to the Bill for Stopping the Activity of UNRWA.
This is a government bill, to which private members’ bills were attached in preliminary reading, sponsored by MKs Limor Son Har Melech (Otzma Yehudit) and Yulia Malinovsky (Yisrael Beytenu).
28 Members of Knesset supported the bill and eight opposed it. The bill will be turned over to the House Committee to determine the committee in which the bill will be deliberated.
It is proposed to amend the Law for Stopping the Activity of UNRWA, so that a provider of electricity or water service will not supply a property with electricity or water, as relevant, if the name of the consumer registered at that property is UNRWA.
In addition, it is proposed to grant the state the power to take possession of land that is Israeli land, which has served UNRWA in various compounds.
The Knesset last year passed legislation to end all cooperation with UNRWA and bar its activities within Israeli jurisdiction.
A week after the Knesset passed the legislation, then-Foreign Minister Israel Katz officially announced the cancellation of the 1967 agreement between Israel and UNRWA, which formed the legal basis for relations between the State of Israel and UNRWA. The legislation officially took effect on January 30.
UNRWA has long been criticized for its cooperation with Hamas. That criticism has increased since Israel revealed in 2024 that UNRWA staff participated in the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks.
It then presented a dossier showing that the UNRWA workers who participated in the Hamas massacre kidnapped a woman, handed out ammunition and actively took part in the massacre at Kibbutz Be’eri, where 97 people were murdered.
Following the Israeli revelations, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced the creation of a review group, headed by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, to look into the Israeli allegations.
The group said in its report that it found neutrality-related issues” in UNRWA but also claimed that Israel had yet to provide evidence for allegations that a significant number of its staff were members of terrorist organizations.
Emily Damari, a former Hamas hostage who was freed after 470 days in captivity, said that she was held at an UNRWA facility.
In April 2025, USAID revealed that the United Nations obstructed an investigation by the American government into the ties between UNRWA employees in Gaza and the Hamas terrorist organization.
Despite all this evidence, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) recently ruled that Israel must facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip through UN agencies, including UNRWA. That ruling was criticized by Israel as well as by the US.