Amidst the Israeli regime’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip and the mass forcible displacement across the West Bank, the EU and most of its member states have failed to uphold their obligations to protect Palestinian refugees by protecting UNRWA and ensuring its unhindered presence and operations, in Palestine, and especially Gaza. The EU and its member states must sever ties with the Israeli regime—a serial violator of ceasefires and perpetrator of ongoing international crimes. The EU and member states are duty-bound and to impose sanctions to hold the Israeli regime accountable.
UNRWA has been the target of an ongoing Israeli-US campaign to delegitimize, demonize, defund, dismantle and replace the Agency mandated to provide aid and services to over 5.9 million Palestine refugees. The Israeli regime has directly attacked UNRWA facilities and staff in the Gaza Strip: over 312 UNRWA installations have been destroyed or damaged and over 370 UNRWA personnel have been murdered.
In January 2025, the Israeli regime banned UNRWA in Palestine, in direct violation of its international obligations, with the aim of banning international presence, resulting in:
- The weaponization of aid, famine, and the denial of healthcare and education in the Gaza Strip and exacerbation of the genocide;
- The closure of 16 UNRWA schools in the West Bank, including Jerusalem;
- The violation of UN privileges and immunities, such as international staff visas, including the Commissioner-General, and Palestinian employees’ permits necessary to enter Jerusalem;
- The Israeli regime is undermining the international legal order by tampering with a UN Agency and its mandate.
The US-Israeli imposed replacement for UNRWA,the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), has massacred over 2,340 Palestinians at aid sites and engineered famine and genocide in Gaza. Trump’s 20 Point Plan masquerades as a “peace plan” to further entrench Israeli colonization in the Gaza Strip while failing to ensure UNRWA’s reinstatement and the lifting of its ban. It has been unequivocally condemned by UN experts for violating the right to self-determination.
Despite famine alerts since February 2024, Austria, Italy, Germany, Sweden have cut or reduced funding to UNRWA, constituting complicity in the Israeli genocide by contributing to the famine and genocide. Despite the finding of UN Commission of Inquiry and the Special Committee that the Israeli regime is committing genocide, states have taken no practical measures and are instead contributing to UNRWA’s dismantlement by turning it into an interim state-building tool tied to Palestinian statehood and the transfer of its services to host states in contravention of its mandate.
Legal and Moral Obligations of States:
- The Genocide Convention – States are obligated, individually and collectively, to stop, prevent and punish genocide. This obligation overrides national and regional legislation, requiring states to end their complicity, and at minimum impose sanctions and ensure unhindered humanitarian access and provision.
- To uphold international protection through enforcing:
- UNGA Resolution 194 (1948) – Guarantee Palestinian refugees’ reparations (return, property restitution, compensation, rehabilitation and non-repetition)
- UNGA Resolution 302 (1949) – Provides the humanitarian component of international protection through UNRWA until the implementation of Res. 194
- International Humanitarian and Criminal Law – Prohibit and punish the weaponization of aid, starvation, forcible displacement, willful killing, and wanton destruction in the Gaza Strip.
- EU Treaty Law – Requires that all external EU actions adhere to human rights and international law.
BADIL Resource Center and the Global Palestinian Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons Network (GPRN) call on the EU and its member states to:
- Affirm UNRWA’s existence and operations are contingent on the full implementation of UNGA Resolution 194, not on the aspiration of Palestinian statehood and reject any measures to replace UNRWA with other agencies or host states;
- Renew UNRWA’s mandate at the UNGA as it currently stands without conditions;
- Provide full, unconditional political and financial support to UNRWA, ensuring the Agency has the means to implement its mandate immediately in its five areas of operations (Gaza, West Bank including Jerusalem, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria);
- Dismantle the GHF and fully restore UN-led operations in Palestine, particularly in Gaza;
- Ban the activities of Israeli and Zionist institutions, organizations and companies within states’ jurisdictions, in response to the banning of UNRWA;
- Impose comprehensive military, economic and political sanctions on the Israeli regime, individually and collectively through UNGA Resolution 377 “Uniting for Peace”, including its suspension from the UN, ensuring accountability for violations and protection of Palestinian refugees.
10 October 2025
Source: badil.org