By
Dear Secretary-General Guterres,
Amidst the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip and mass forcible displacement across the West Bank, the Strategic Assessment of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), published in June 2025, raises urgent concerns for all actors committed to upholding the rights and protection of Palestinian refugees—and for the United Nations itself in fulfilling its Charter mandate and obligations under international law.
Rather than challenging the Israeli campaign targeting UNRWA, violating international law, and upholding and reinforcing UNRWA’s mandate, the Assessment treats the Agency’s collapse as inevitable—presenting four future scenarios that, in different ways, dismantle the last operational UN institution serving over 5.9 million Palestine refugees.
In our paper, Engineered Collapse: The United Nations’ Strategic Assessment of UNRWA and Palestinian Refugee Rights, our analysis finds that the Assessment:
- Decontextualizes UNRWA’s mandate in the ongoing situation of genocide, colonialism, apartheid, and forced displacement;
- Prioritizes the political interests of certain Member States and the Israeli regime over binding international legal obligations;
- Proposes reforms that would fragment and localize refugee protection, offloading responsibilities onto host states;
- Ignores viable and just funding solutions, such as integrating UNRWA’s budget into the UN’s regular budget or utilizing revenues from Palestinian refugee properties held in custodianship;
- Portrays UNRWA’s neutrality through a colonial lens, instrumentalizing the Agency as a tool of “regional stability” for donor-driven political agendas.
At the heart of this matter lies the indivisible relationship between UNGA Resolutions 302 and 194. Article 11 of Resolution 194 establishes the right of Palestinian refugees to reparations—including return, property restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, and guarantees of non-repetition. Article 5 of Resolution 302 grounds UNRWA’s mandate in this still-unrealized right of return, stipulating that its operations are without prejudice to it. The Agency’s existence is a direct consequence of non-implementation of this right, and its dismantlement could only be justified once that right has been fully realized.
Another troubling trend is found both in the Strategic Assessment and in recent discussions—including the High-Level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution. Despite the clear legal framework affirming Palestinian refugee rights, the Assessment links UNRWA’s continued existence to the realization of the two-state solution rather than to the exercise of the Palestinian right of return. Notably, Paragraph 14 of the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine highlights the prospects outlined in Scenario Four of the Strategic Assessment. This scenario envisions transferring UNRWA’s services to the Palestinian Authority, which would politicize the Agency and violate its mandate.
Tying the Agency’s role and existence to this political framework compromises its neutrality, shifts its operational purpose away from fulfilling Palestinian refugees’ rights, and absolves the international community of their obligations to provide international protection.
Lastly, the Assessment’s failure to recognize the Israeli regime’s long-standing campaign to dismantle UNRWA as a legal emergency, normalizes its obstruction as an administrative matter instead of a violation of UN privileges and immunities. This limited treatment starkly contrasts with the gravity of the situation, which has resulted in the gravest loss of life ever suffered by any UN agency—over 330 UNRWA personnel killed and more than 311 UNRWA installations destroyed in Gaza since the Israeli genocide began.
BADIL and the Global Palestinian Refugee and IDP Network (GPRN, a coalition of 42 community-based organizations active in displaced communities across Mandatory Palestine and abroad) call on the UN Secretary-General to:
- Safeguard the UN’s commitment to international law and the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, by ensuring that UNRWA’s mandate is upheld in full, shielded from politicization, and adequately resourced in accordance with the UN’s legal responsibilities;
- Reject the adoption of the Strategic Assessment, ahead of the upcoming renewal of UNRWA’s mandate by the UN General Assembly.
Sincerely,
BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency & Refugee Rights and the Global Palestinian Refugee and IDP Network (GPRN).
20 August 2025
Source: badil.org